Chapter 1 - No Sanctuary

My name is Rosie Morrison, and I'm a survivor.

Why am I not dead yet?

I woke up sitting against the wall of an empty delivery van with a rifle in my lap. I didn't remember falling asleep. Panicked, I quickly looked around the van, but everything seemed normal. My younger brother, Talmadge, was asleep at my feet, sprawled out and with his butt in the air. His long, spindly limbs barely fit in our cramped living quarters. I nose-laughed to myself. He always was a violent sleeper. The sun wasn't completely up yet. I contemplated whether to let Tal sleep or to wake him for a quick supply run. The night before had been rough. Some corpses had followed us back to the van when we went to collect water and didn't leave until well after dark.

I decided to let him sleep until the sun was just barely peeking over the trees. I ate a small amount of water and freeze-dried bananas to give me energy for the long day ahead, then grabbed my gun and slung it over my shoulder. I cautiously opened the back door of the van and scanned the surrounding forest for corpses, then adjusted the branches and things we had used to camouflage the van. Some of them had fallen down in the attack last night. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a window. My brown, wavy-curly hair was long and wild, like there could be birds living in it, and my light skin was peeling from endless sunburns. Freckles were scattered on my skin where the sun hit it most often, almost indiscernible through all the dirt covering me. My eyes were still blue. I don't know why this was surprising to me-I guess I felt like they should have been dead and cloudy by then. Corpse eyes. I looked myself in the eye for a few more seconds before quickly covering the van. Sometimes the reflection of the sun on the glass attracted the dead, but we were more afraid of the living at that point.

I climbed back inside to wake up Tal. His face looked more sunken-in than ever. I tried not to think about it most of the time, and besides, mine probably looked just as sickly. While Tal sat up, I took out my leather-bound notebook and pocket scriptures from my utility jacket. These were my most prized possessions. They were all I had left.

"Today is October 1st," I said. There was a calendar in the front pages of my notebook. Over the years I kept track of what days went past. It was part of what kept us going.

Then we prayed, read some verses of scripture, and packed up. That was the other part of what kept us going.

There was a town nearby that we got supplies from. It was a pit-stop of a town, really, but it was still pretty picked-over by the time we got there. What isn't these days?

As we walked, we played twenty questions, but it usually ended up being fifty questions and then giving the other person the answer. Either we were getting too good at picking unguessable things or we we really sucked at guessing.

We did a quick sweep through some houses we hadn't entered yet and found some random pantry items and a shovel, along with a handful of corpses. Tal and I barely flinched now as we took turns driving our knives through their skulls. We had a system worked out, and as long as there were only a few at a time, we could easily take care of ourselves.

We called it a day when the supplies became too much to carry, but with the sun still high in the sky, there was plenty of time left in the day. We put the supplies in a shopping basket we snagged from a convenience store and decided to head back to the van a different way. I knew this was dangerous since we didn't know the area and we could get lost, but I reasoned that we had time to spare.

We found a small grove of mulberry bushes and gathered as many berries as we could bring with us.

"We used to eat these when we were little," I said with a smile, "when we lived in that little farmhouse."

"Really?" Tal said, tilting his head to see me through the bushes.

"Yeah. You used to eat all the ones that weren't ripe and make yourself sick," I laughed.

"I was two!" He said indignantly. Tal was twelve now, but he was already almost as tall as I was. My family had always been early bloomers, and his growth spurt was certainly welcome if it meant he could more easily defend himself.

I wanted to change the subject. It hurt too much to think about my family, and I couldn't afford to let myself feel it. I had to protect the family I had left.

I glanced over at Tal. "I need to cut your hair again."

"Okay," he said simply, his fine, caramel hair hanging forward like a curtain. Before, he used to put up a huge fuss when it was hair-cutting time. Now, things like appearances were too trivial to even cross our minds.

We eventually came into a clearing; it was a railroad. I was surprised that we didn't see it sooner, it wasn't too far from our van. Farther down the railroad, I could see there was a sign of some kind. We walked up to it, ignoring the corpse-snarling sounds that were coming from that direction.

"Sanctuary for all, community for all. Those who arrive, survive," I read. Below it was a map marking the location of this so-called sanctuary.

"Huh... Terminus," Talmadge said. He looked up the road where some corpses had gathered. "Do you think it's for real?"

"I dunno," I said, not wanting to get my hopes up.

By then the sun was low, so we made our way back to the van. Talmadge made me swear that we would follow the railroad the next day, so I made sure to get some good sleep. I took out my notebook and my scriptures. Nestled in the pages was the only thing I had left of my family. I set a creased, well-worn photo in my lap. There was my mom, beautiful and dark-haired and funny. My dad, a big, strong man with a scruffy beard but a big softie at heart. And then my twin brother, Hyatt, about as tall and lanky and teenager-y as you could get. Tal, who was only eight years old in this picture, was growing up just like him. No matter how many times I looked at it, I never recognized myself in this picture. Not only because I was younger, but because the girl in the picture was from a different world. She wasn't me.

I closed my eyes and prayed. I prayed that Tal and I would be watched over and I prayed that I would have the strength to keep going. This was my time to feel it, to feel everything. This was my time to remember.

I wrote a quick one-sentence entry in my notebook. "Oct. 1 - Found a railroad."

I quickly faded into sleep.

Why am I still alive?

What do I have left to live for?

The next day came much faster than I wanted it to. It always did. Before we left the van, I packed my bag with a little more than I usually did, just in case something was up with the railroad. That was practically our motto: just in case.

We came out to the railroad a little further down than before. The sign we saw the day before was behind us.

"Hold up. I wanna grab some of those berries," Tal said. We started walking up the road the way we came.

"Wait wait wait," I stopped in my tracks and grabbed Tal by his hoodie, "the sign-the sign!"

On the terminus sign, the whole thing had been blocked out in blood, except for the word "SANCTUARY," and the word "NO" had been written above it. I ran closer to the sign to inspect it. "It's fresh," I said, "Someone's close."

A wave of terror ran through me. And these days, it took a lot to do that. Immediately, the two of us rushed for cover in the bushes, firearms at the ready.

"This was a bad idea. Let's go back," I said to Tal. He nodded. "We'll wait it out in the van."

I didn't know who these people were or what they were up to, but I sure as heck wasn't about to find out. With our limited tracking skills, we tried to figure out which way the other people went, but we figured they would just keep following the railroad. We veered off the road straight into the woods. After walking for a while, we were almost lost. Tal was leading me because he had a better sense of direction. There were so few corpses around it was almost suspicious. We were next to a steep embankment when Tal stopped and noticed on the ground a bunch of nuts and berries, where there were no trees around. I thought maybe a squirrel had left them there. Our hunger was growing sharp at that point so we went over to gather some of it. That's when I heard a man's voice yelling for help.

We grabbed our weapons and looked down the embankment where the yelling was coming from. I couldn't see to the bottom of the tall, steep hill because there was too much greenery.

"Come on," Tal said, walking down to the man, "Rosie, we have to help."

"No, Tal, wait!" I chased after him, "It could be a trap." I followed him, rifle in hand, through the trees as the man continued to plead for help.

"I see him," Tal said, "He's down on that rock."

The man was in a black suit and barely out of reach of a half dozen corpses.

"Why doesn't he have a-" I began to say, but the both of us stepped onto a patch of slick mud and promptly slid all the way down to the boulders below. The sudden movement drew half the corpses our way, and I actually fell right into one. It viciously snapped its teeth in my face, inches away from my jugular. I screeched for Tal to help me, but I didn't hear any response. As I struggled and failed to push the corpse away and reach for my knife at the same time, I heard a loud shot being fired. The blow landed in the head of the corpse and liquified brain splattered all over me. I pushed the thing off and got up, expecting to see Tal and ready to fight off the corpses that the gunshot had attracted. Instead, I saw a big group of people rushing to kill all the corpses around the man in the black suit, whom I now saw was a Catholic priest. I was so rattled that I just joined in. Once all the corpses were dead, the priest jumped down. The energy was calm now, and as I scanned the group, I realized that I didn't know where Talmadge was.

"Tal!" I called, looking frantically around. I heard him moaning from behind the boulder.

As the priest guy vomited in front of the group of newcomers, I stumbled through the rocks and undergrowth to find Tal huddled behind the boulder. He had hit his head on the way down the embankment. His head was bleeding but, to my relief, it wasn't too serious. I helped him stand up and used one arm to support him and the other to hold up my knife towards the group of strangers. They had been talking to the priest, but then their attention shifted to me. They looked at me cautiously, but I could see that they didn't consider me much of a threat. I couldn't blame them, I would have probably thought the same. My appearance wasn't exactly intimidating; I was blood-covered, exhausted, and only a handful of inches over five feet tall.

"You all right?" one of them asked. It was a woman with shoulder-length brown hair. Her expression was soft but guarded.

I nodded.

A man with a beard spoke up. "Are you with Father Gabriel here?" He meant the priest guy. I shook my head.

"You gotta name?" I didn't answer. I wanted to leave immediately, before I found out what these people wanted from me.

"What're you doing here?" The beard guy asked.

When I again answered with silence, Father Gabriel answered for me. "I-I think they were trying to help me, but they fell down that hill."

Beard guy turned to me. "Is that true?"

I nodded.

"Is he gonna be okay?" he gestured towards my brother.

I nodded again, but this time I decided to speak. "He just hit his head."

Tal looked like he was teetering on the brink of consciousness. I was losing my grip on him to keep him upright. Beard guy saw this started approaching me, but I raised my knife on him, my eyes threatening. He put up his hands.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm only tryna help," he said softly.

"I don't need your help," I spat, but even as I said it I knew I couldn't hold Tal for much longer. Right when Tal collapsed, the bearded guy was able to catch him before he hit the ground.

"I got 'em," he said. He picked up Tal in his arms, then looked at me while I stood with a "don't try anything" look on my face and a rifle pointed at his face.

"He could have a concussion. We need to find him somewhere to lie down," the brunette girl said.

"You said you have a church?" a dark-skinned woman with long dreadlocks said to Father Gabriel.

"Y-yes," Gabriel replied.

"Is it far?" beard guy asked.

"No, not far. I can show you."

"Okay then," beard guy turned to me, "Will you come with us?"

I tried to act threatening but really I was terrified. "I don't even know you."

"I'm Rick. This here is my family. What's your name?"

My eyes flickered to the faces in his group. "I'm Rosie. That's my brother, Talmadge."

"Nice to meet you Rosie." He asked again if I would come with them.

The idea of joining up with strangers made me sick, but it seemed like I had no other options.

Rick could sense my hesitation. "You can trust us, I swear."

I lowered my rifle ever so slightly. I had made a decision. "...Fine. I'll go for Talmadge. But just... just know I'm not staying, and that I will shoot you all if anything happens."

Rick gave me a serious but knowing look. "'Wouldn't expect nothin' less."