"Take another step and I'll pull the trigger!" The hooded man threatened, whilst clutching Myla's sister firmly in his arms.
"N-no please! S-she didn't do anything-take me instead!" Myla found herself screaming as she threw open her arms and lunged forward.
Myla's sister, Ariana García, shot her a terrified look in fear for her sister.
"Myl-!"
"HEY! BACK! Back...I wouldn't want to have to shoot her now, right?" He replied, pulling her closely and cupping her chin.
"Get your filthy hands off of me." The hostage hissed, narrowing her eyes.
The man pulled an expression of surprise as he scowled.
"Don't be a bitch or you'll regret it, little girl." He threatened, placing the gun directly under her neck.
"Ariana! Dios mio, por favor!" Myla sobbed in her native tongue.
"Es bien, Myla. I'll be okay. He's not got the balls to do it anyway." She joked as tears ran down her face in fear for her sister.
"Wanna test that theory!?" He growled, becoming more and more agitated with her antics.
"Totally with it if you are, prick." She gritted her teeth, replying coldly.
"Why you-! Eh?"
Interrupting the man, another stranger - an old man - was waltzing right through the alleyway and towards the man and Ariana.
"Hey, dotard - piss off! You wanna get shot too!?"
The man continued to slowly make his way down the alley.
"W-wh- are you fucking stupid!? Do you have a death wish!?"
The threat's attention had now shifted from Ariana to the old man. Ariana contemplated mentally whether to escape or not, and if it was worth the risk. Interrupting her thoughts, three bullets were fired, leaving the girls to cover their ears as Myla screamed. Ariana turned her head - and to her horror, the man had shot the senile man three times in the chest.
"I-I told him to stop!" The anonymous man screamed, dropping the gun and putting his hands up.
Ariana rapidly ran to Myla and grabbed her hand without hesitation.
"We've gotta go, NOW!" Ariana screamed.
"No, Ariana, espera! The man...he's still moving! He-He's not even fazed, Ariana!" Myla pointed out.
"What?" The distressed teenager questioned, turning her head.
To her surprise, Myla was right - the old man was still walking slowly towards the now sobbing and distraught hooded man. The old man finally reached the crying male and grabbed a hold of him.
"What's he-?"
"AAAAAHHH!" Myla let out the most horrified scream as the old man sunk his teeth into the man's arm and took out a chunk of it, leaving blood to spill everywhere and the man to scream out in pain.
"OH MY GOD, MYLA, COME ON!" Ariana screamed, dragging her terrified sister and bolting out of the alleyway towards her car in the parking lot.
"The car's there, give me the keys!" Ariana called to her sister, who was covering her face and crying, silent.
Ariana turned to her sister and became more serious.
"Myla. Where are the keys?" She became deep voiced and concerned.
"...I dropped them in the alleyway." She cried quietly.
"Oh god, Myla! Ok...We need to run, Myla. Are you okay? Are your legs okay? Can you run?" Ariana quizzed, question after question.
"...I think I can run." Myla quietly whimperes, wiping away her tears and pulling her short curly brown hair behind her ears.
"O-okay, okay. Look- it's a cop! Oh my god this is perfect- Officer, Hey- Officer!" Ariana waved, grinning with satisfaction, which quickly faded away.
"...What's wrong with him?" Myla squeaked, as her pupils shrunk.
"...He's...bleeding? Oh my god! He's missing half a face!" Ariana covered her mouth with her hand as she forced herself to look away.
"Ariana, look, the man over there is acting strange too!" Myla pointed out.
"...I think everyone's like this...but- mom and dad! We need to bust open the window. These people will attack us if we get too close, we saw it in the alleyway, and it'll happen. You need to be ready to defend yourself if anything happens, ok? If anything happens to me, I want you to run as fast as your legs can take you to La Casa, ok?" Ariana hugged Myla as Myla looked on in fair.
"Ariana, what are you saying-!? We'll be fine, y-you'll come back home too won't you!?" Myla panicked, pulling her hair.
Ariana didn't respond as she tied her laces and busted open the car boot, revealing a large wrench.
"I'm going to bust the window open. When I do, climb in and hit emergency start and get the hell out of here." Ariana deadpanned, leaving Myla speechless and without a choice.
"NO! I'M NOT GOING WITHOUT YOU, ARIANA! Y-YOU COME WITH ME RIGHT NOW, I SWEAR!" Myla screamed, attracting the two injured men's attention.
"Shit, Myla! Shut up! They're gonna hear us!"
"NO, I DON'T CARE-!"
Ariana smacked a hand over her sister's mouth and used her free hand to smash in the car window.
"GET IN!" Ariana pushed her sister inside as one of the men grabbed a hold of her and almost bit into her arm if it wasn't for Ariana giving him a whack around the head with the wrench.
"Get the fuck off of me!" Ariana hit the man repeatedly as the other man was approaching behind her.
"A-Ariana, behind you!" Myla screamed as her sister turned and also hit the approaching man with brute force around the head, causing blood to go everywhere and the man to fall to the ground, presumably unconscious.
"I fucking knocked him out, hell yeah." As Ariana took a breath, the other man started to slowly get up, Ariana did not have enough time to react as he grabbed on to her shoulder as leaned in towards her neck.
BANG!
Myla smacked him right in his temple with a wooden chair leg that was in the back seat of the car. Ariana looked towards her sister in surprise.
"Myla, I said-!"
"I don't care! Get in, we're finding mama and papa!" Myla pulled her sister in and Ariana hit the acceleration.
{On the road, passing people.}
"They're all the same, Ariana...what the hell is going on? I'm...scared. Why are they all bleeding so much!?" Myla pressed her face up to the window as she scanned the clumps of seemingly lifeless people.
"I'm...scared too. It's like they're...not even human? I don't know why everyone is so...like THIS!" Ariana looked around as well as she turned a corner to their parents' house.
"The door's been busted down! Shit! Fuck! Damnit, I'm going to look for them, okay? Stay. In. Here. You come out of this car and your only protection is gone. I acknowledged that the window is broken in, so I want you to crouch in the backseat under the chairs." Ariana got out of the car and held the metal wrench in her right hand.
"Wait-! Ariana, j-just listen to me for a second!" Myla interrupted.
Ariana turned her head and stared into Myla's electric blue eyes with her ecentric and rare dark purple ones.
"You're not coming, nor are you stopping me, Myla." Ariana informed before she could say anything.
"I-I know. I just wanted to tell you to be careful...I love you." Myla smiled, tears slowly coming down her eyes.
Ariana hesitated but then faced her full body towards Myla.
"I love you too. Be safe. Leave without me if I don't return in 10 minutes."
Myla nodded sadly and then ducked back down under the seat.
Arian slowly walked uo to her parents' half open door and pushed it fully open, holding her wrench cautiously.
"Máma? Papa? Hola? Es mi, Ariana."
She walked towards the kitchen, where she could hear banging on glass. She slowly opened the door which revealed her mother, deceased on the floor outside and her father banging on the glass of her garden door.
"M-MÁMA!?" Ariana dropped her wrench and rushed towards the door. "Pa..pa." Ariana sobbed as she looked at the mess they were in. The person banging on the glass was not her father, it was something else in his body. And he looked very sick- that's when Ariana noticed the blood coming down the back of his throat. She rotated her angle to get a better look and noticed a huge piece of his neck missing, with a bite mark left there like someone had bitten him. Her mind flashed back to the scene in the alleyway where the man bit the stranger, and how he looked like he had been bitten aswell.
"It's...a virus?" She whispered quietly and with fear, as she widened her eyes. "But...he's lost so much blood, he should be-"
"...Dead."
Ariana spun her body round with ninja-like reflexes as a figure stood at the doorway, brandishing a bloodied knife. Ariana scanned him up and down before lunging for her wrench and clutching it.
"...What?" She questioned as she realised what he had said.
"They're dead. And there's no need to reach for your weapon, I don't intend to hurt you." Spoke the boy, who looked around the same age as Myla and a few years younger than Ariana. He had mousy brown hair and green eyes, he was mixed-raced and was decent looking.
"What are you talking about? They're not dead- my Papa is alive, look, he's walking!" She pointed at her father, to which the book shook his head in reply to her statement.
"They've been reborn, sort of. They died, but their bodies keep on moving. From what I've learned so far the 'virus' spreads through bites and their only known weakness is their head- or more specifically, brain. It's been like this for at least a day. You're telling me you survived without knowing this?" He asked, putting his knife in a holster on his waist.
"We- I mean, I...wasn't in town. We only got back like, 4 hours ago. It was dark at 6 in the morning, you know. You don't pay attention to detail." She mumbled, still traumatised about her parents.
"We? Who's we?" The boy caught on.
"I didn't mean to say we. It's just me. I'm not with anyone."
"Then why did you use 'we' a second time in the sentence?" The boy quirked, raising an eyebrow.
"Shit, did I? Well, 'twas a mistake. I'll be going now." She bravely wiped away her tears and walked past the boy, who grabbed her arm loosely as she passed.
"Wait. You look like you don't know what you're doing, and I would happily accompany you. Plus, I've been lonely for a while, so it's win-win. Even a bigger win-win if you own a vehicle, because I'm planning to get out of the state. I heard they're holding refugees in Maryland and the stated past there. You could come, if you wanted." He shrugged, smiling.
She stared at him for a solid 5 seconds before attempting to pull away.
"You're wasting my time, I need to go."
He didn't let go.
"Please, I need to find my family as well." He begged, frowning.
"I told you, I don't have time for this! Find your own damn vehicle." Ariana spat before firmly pulling back once more, to which he released her hand.
"Why are you in a rush anyway?" He asked rhetorically, raising an eyebrow.
"It's none of your business!" She started to speed up, wondering if Myla had already left without her.
"Well, would you at least tell me why you and the other girl came here?" He quizzed, making Ariana stopped her tracks and turn to face him.
"Other-?"
"I saw you drive up here together. Why did you think I kept talking about a car so much?" He sighed, crossing his arms and closing his eyes.
"I..." She cut herself off and looked sincerely into the young boy's eyes. "The girl is my sister...we came here to search for my parents. As...you can see." She started to tear up as she gestured towards the muertos. (Note: Muerto does not mean zombie, it is 'dead man' in Spanish)
"I don't know where we're headed now, I'd hoped that my parents would be alive; but now that that's out of the question..."
She pulled the blinds shut so that she could now longer see her parents.
"I'm sorry that you had to see your parents like that. I had to aswell, and it is not a pretty sight at all. I'm still pretty distraught about it, honestly- I mean, who in their right mind wouldn't be? But I'm glad that-"
The front door suddenly swung open, cutting of the boy's sentence. It didn't take the pair much time to hide behind a wall.
"Ariana? Ariana, dondé estás?" Myla called meekly, tip-toeing in as quietly as she could.
"Myla?" Ariana whispered, jumping up. "Está aqui!" She smiled, pacing up to her sister and embracing her.
"Oh thank god, I didn't know whether you were alive or- I mean, I thought you- well, I just!-"
"It's okay, Myla. I know what you mean." Ariana smiled sweetly.
"I know you told me to stay in the car but I had to...check..." Myla trailed of as she gazed at the boy behind her sister.
"Hm? Oh, yeah. This is...uhm, name please?" Ariana nudged, whispering.
"...Damian." He held his hand out for Myla to shake, which she complied and smiled, blushing a little.
"I'm Myla." She replied as Damian smiled, red slightly appearing on his cheeks also.
Ariana observed the scene and scoffed, knowing that Myla was unaware about her parent's demise and Damian was taking enjoyment in that. But Ariana was NOT planning on telling Myla, she would get super depressed.
"Valé, Vamós chicos." Ariana said sadly.
"Hm. Spanish. Guay." Damian smirked.
"Callé." Ariana quickly retorted.
"So, is Damian coming with us?" Myla asked, tilting her head to the side.
"Tch. I don't want to have to babysit another." Ariana insulted, continuing out of the door.
"Wait-you're gonna LEAVE me here!?" Damian panicked, throwing his hands out.
"You seem to know much more than us, so you should be fine, right?" Ariana turned, her eyes piercing his.
"I...I do know alot, but there's no way I can get to Maryland alone!" He'd almost lost hope at this point, that was until Myla stepped in.
"Ariana, we can't just leave him here! That's against our humanity, and you know it would benefit us having him on our team in the long run. Please, Ariana. Do it for me." Myla shot her sister with the puppy dog eyes.
"...Fine. You can come-"
"Thank you." He sighed.
"-on one condition." She carried on, walking up to him. "You follow ALL of my orders, even one's you don't agree with. Got it? You disobey me and I can assure you I will knock you flat on your bony ass." She hissed before walking over to the car.
"I'm sorry about that. My sister can be a bit intimidating sometimes, but once you get to know her she'll really warm up to you." Myla assured him, before getting in the car with Ariana, shortly followed by Damian.
"...Thanks again, Ariana. I know you don't know or trust me, but I really only mean the best intentions...I hope you can see that soon." Damian thanked, leaning against the car window.
Ariana didn't reply as she hit the gas and sped off down the road.
"...I didn't see Mama and Papa back there...do you reckon they're okay?" Myla asked her sister.
"...I didn't see them either. Maybe they're okay, but we can't be disappointed if we come across results we don't like. You've got to be ready for anything, Myla. I want you to remember that." Ariana replied, placing a hand on Myla's shoulder, comforting her.
"Ok, Ariana..."