A/N: Hello everybody! Instead of working on several plot lines that I should have finished, I came up with another idea! :D I should probably stop doing that... Anyway, if you guys like this idea, I think I'll make it into a longer story (with the other Guardians as well). I got the idea from a book series that I absolutely love called The Forest of Hands and Teeth, although this isn't in the same universe (thus not a crossover).

Alright, I'll stop rambling. Please read, review, and enjoy! :)

The Things No One Knows

The boy wiped the sweat from his brow and saw that blood had smeared onto his favorite sweatshirt. Cursing to himself, he braced his knees and stood, pulling his body into a long stretch. It wasn't a bite, so it didn't matter, but the sweatshirt was one of the few things he'd managed to salvage from his home. Well, what had been left of home, anyway. The fact that it was ruined so quickly alerted him to the upsetting and disturbing reality he had entered. Right when he had been about to forget the events of earlier that afternoon, it all flooded back to him again and he sat back down wearily. His breath caught and he reached for his Bo staff. If he didn't have that weapon, he doubted he'd have gotten away with his life. Maybe half of it, but what did that matter when it meant─

What did it mean, when your life was only partially lost? Did that mean you were them? Or was that lifelessness in its true form? Was there nothing left in those glazed eyes and jagged, torn bodies? These questions swirled in his head. He never dared to give them a name. They didn't deserve so much attention. Not to mention how dangerously strange the word "zombie" felt on his tongue. Were they really like he'd seen in thousands of movies and video games? Undeniably, they had been, as he'd found out.

And yet, there was something about them that looked still more human than anyone could have anticipated. They seemed more like people. They talked more like people. They weren't dumb, either. The things could walk right up to you and pass you, and you'd never know that they were... well, dead. Were they dead? The boy didn't have a better answer. At first, the news stations said it was just some mentally ill person that had escaped the hospital. Then it was a case of narcotic drugs. Then it was rabies. Then it was... well, that's when the stations cut out. It didn't really matter after that point. What did matter? There was a safe zone the next town to the South. It hadn't spread that far, not yet. No one would know him there. He could start over. Alone.

The boy figured the government had stepped in and sent the military to the outskirts of the town. He'd seen the large armored vehicles stroll through several side streets. He watched from the alleyways, but never dared to step out into sight. The police were probably given orders to shoot down anyone that looked infected. He probably looked like one of them now. He didn't feel like he was worth more than them either, for he had his family's blood on his hands, pants, shirt, and shoes. The latter two he had discarded in the hauntingly empty bedroom. If he had just stayed in that room, closed the door, and shut the blinds, he could have pretended that everything was normal. That the streets were screaming. They'd stop screaming soon. Whether by brutal ends or otherwise, they would have stopped. He would have been in silence, and he could have looked up at the skies and slowly counted his breaths until they clawed at his door. Until then, the silence would be comfortable. The blue, cloudless skies would have told him that nothing was wrong; that to them, everything was just running its course.

Tears wouldn't suffice. He cried out long enough after escaping the house, after saving his sister. He tried to tell her to calm down, to not go into the kitchen and see why their parents had been cut short of their agonizing screams. He tried to hold onto her hand, but she had already slipped out of his grasp and he froze and he didn't know if he could bring her back. Within an instant, he had shot up from behind the couch and grabbed the fireplace poker, lunging for the kitchen. The man that had entered their house stood over the girl, his eyes glazed and hungry, but still an intense brown─ probably the same brown they had been when he was fully human. The boy had frozen in place, watching as his little sister screeched at the sight of their parents. She knelt beside them, her white stockings stained red. He yelled at her to run, to get out of the way, but the man fell on top of her. In the blood-spattered scuffle, he couldn't tell what was going on.

He saw his sister's already-matted hair twisting around and catching on the thing's jacket, pulling her toward his face. The boy yelled, ripping his sister away from the man and throwing her back toward the living room. He turned toward the man and, without hesitation this time, plunged the fireplace poker into the man's throat. The metal caught on something hard, however, and his fingers shook as he struggled to get the makeshift weapon out of the flesh. The curve of the iron was latched around the man's trachea and hitched against ligament paired with the spine and it wouldn't budge. He tried to push down harder, but it couldn't go all the way through. Decapitation wasn't as easy as the video games made it seem. He twisted the metal, which earned him a gut-wrenching shriek from the man underneath him. The man's hands scratched at the boy's white shirt and caught in the button holes of his brown vest. The man was still strong─ he must have gotten sick recently─ and was pulling the boy's face toward his gaping jaws. Tipping the poker forward, the boy used the man's own force against him and shoved it through his throat and up into his brain. The thing stopped breathing. It stopped moaning. It stopped.

The boy had fallen back against the kitchen wall, dazed. The end of the fire poker was still in his grasp and his consciousness swooned in uncertainty. He stared at the bloody massacre beside him, the dark red liquid still pulsating into the cracks of the tile floor. A knot in his stomach threatened to surface and his eyes were bleary. His sister's voice called to him weakly. Turning his head toward the doorway, he saw her eyes were wide and fearful. The boy looked at his hand, still wrapped firmly on the metal poker. He let it go and immediately crashed into his sister's wavering arms. But instead of crying, he had pet her hair and asked her if she was safe, if she was okay. She had said she was fine. She, more than anyone else, would have known. He kept telling himself that.

But he knew he was wrong.

After locking the front door and jamming several kitchen chairs against the lock, along with anything that his sister passed to him, he hurried her up the stairs into their parents' room. He figured it would have been a comfort, or a closure, for them. He passed by the study room and paused. His old Bo staff lay in the corner, as did his other old gear from high school clubs. Peering up the stairs carefully, he saw that she was waiting for him anxiously. A word of reassurance and he disappeared into the study, grabbing anything that could be used for defense. The staff was the first thing his hands grasped, and the familiar dark oak fit in his palms. It slipped at first, the blood on his hands making the grip difficult. Wiping the blood on his pants, he took the staff again and grabbed its holster from the closet. Shouldering the old leather, he thought to grab the conditioner for it. He was still rummaging through the closet for the item when a familiar voice sounded from the hall.

"Mom?" The boy spun around, the ghost of a smile beginning to appear on his lips. But when he saw the figure in the doorway, his throat clenched and he fell to the floor. What stood there was not his mother. It looked like her. It spoke like her. But it wasn't her. This woman's neck was broken, bitten into on one side with brown blood caked to the still vibrant skin. Her feet moved carefully, tentatively, as if it was her first time walking. She looked at him with those familiar brown eyes─ they were his own─ and seemed to recognize him. She muttered something, and fresh blood spilled out of the gash. The boy stared hard, uncomprehending. "Mom?"

She just wanted help, she said. She needed to cook for dinner. She needed food. And what better food than what was right in front of her? But was she really speaking? Were the syllables coming out of her mouth coherent speech? The boy still wished they weren't. Then he wouldn't feel back about what he did. Unsheathing his staff, he knocked her back and aimed the staff above her head. He wouldn't miss. There was no way he could.

That is, if he had forced his body to move. He sneered down at the creature, his foot pressed to her abdomen. This is your mother! What are you doing?! She raised you to live, love, and protect. Look at what you're doing to her! Was that his voice? Was that hers? Tears welled in his eyes as the indecision pounded in his skull. Then a sharp pain emanated from his ankle. Blinking away the fear, he saw that she had clawed his ankle and was bringing it toward her teeth, just like the strange man had done. Using her momentum, the boy kicked her face hard and it twisted sickeningly. In a blind moment of rage, he thrust the staff into her head. A crack was heard, but she still spoke. Well, whining and unearthly screeching was more like it. Tightening his hold on the staff, he brought it down upon her several more times. With each blow, she kicked and snapped her jaws in frustration. With each blow, she wouldn't pass. The boy just wanted her to die.

He wanted his mother to die.

In some surreal notion, he wanted to help her. To protect her. To do that, he had to kill her. Lifting his staff one last time, he pulled all of his weight into the blow and closed his eyes as he heard the squelch of skull and brain matter and other bodily liquids. His limbs were quivering and he wanted nothing more to do with this. It wasn't like the media said. It was harder and far more painful and he doubted that anyone could ever survive this without mentally dying. The blood had splayed all over his clothing and it started to crust in the places where it contacted his skin. His ankle swelled and it made his shoes difficult to walk in. He lay back, his staff still lodged into his mother's head, and proceeded to take off his shoes and socks with great care but shaky fingers. He heard his sister call from the second floor, to which he had replied in a deceptively steady voice. The boy had to be strong for her. There was no other way.

He wasn't aiming for survival. The two bodies lying in his house could attest to his decision. The world outside could as well have fallen away into oblivion and here he was wishing to keep his sister safe. Was "safe" even possible anymore? He was pondering these qualities of human security when he heard a shriek coming from upstairs. Had they learned to climb windows? He was about to rush up the stairs when he caught sight into the kitchen. The man's body was there, and the blood trail that led to his feet said that his mother was already gone, but his father's body wasn't there. His blood had mixed with his mothers, but a fork in the path led up the stairs. Shouting in desperation, the boy flew up the stairs two at a time and collided into his parents' bedroom.

The scene before him shattered his heart. A man that alluded to the shape of his father was chasing his sister around the room, and she was running out of space. A growl was heard. Whether or not it belonged to the boy or the father was up for debate. Without a thought, the boy jumped onto the man's back and hooked his arms around the neck. It bulged since the muscles were in erratic spasm, but he held on with all his might and yanked backwards. He heard his sister yell his name as the pair fell to the floor, with the boy crushed under his father. The air flew from his lungs and his head swam from hitting the wood. The man above him wriggled and squirmed, uttering eerily correct sounds. The bite wasn't in his throat, and so he must still be capable of human speech. But how long did the brain last after infection? Was it an infection? The thoughts were in the back of the boy's mind, seeing as other matters were more pressing.

The seconds passed by like hours. The boy's arms were tiring and he wondered if there was anything else he could use that would be more efficient. His parents had never owned any guns, and the only knives were down in the kitchen. He couldn't just run down there himself and leave this estranged man with his sister. But he couldn't let her go downstairs, either. She would see what he'd done to their mother. She'd call him a monster and the irony would have been lost on them. Was he not exactly like them now? Urging himself to believe that he was above all and foremost human, he pulled upward and inward with newfound strength. The man's choking sounds became more strained, and the kicking dulled. It wasn't quick, but it wasn't bloody. That was the best that he could hope for under the witness of his innocent sibling. When everything stilled, the boy asked his sister if the man was done. She blinked and nodded warily, keeping herself behind the nightstand beside the bedpost.

With that, the boy rolled the man off of him and stood wearily. Steeling his nerves, he took a towel from the closet opposite the window─ and his sister─ and covered his father's body. He couldn't bring himself to close the man's unseeing, eyes. It would make him sicker than he already was. But he wasn't about to appear that way in front of her. He was her protector. At least, that's what he thought until he saw the marks on her arm.

He walked over to her slowly, as if trying not to scare her, when it was really he who was scared. He asked her to step closer and he held out his arms. She shook her head vigorously. There was no way she would endanger him as well.

"It's okay," he said. "You're going to be alright. We're gonna have a little fun instead."

She negated him indignantly. Her voice had cracked and it made his heart lurch. But he couldn't let her see the pain.

"I promise, I promise, you're going to be fine," he reassured her. The boy struggled to keep his fingers from twitching. He couldn't lose his sister, too. Anyone, but not her. Please, not her. "You have to believe in me."

His sister parted her lips and her eyes softened. Nodding, she stepped out from behind the nightstand. She cupped her elbows and shivered. Her injured arm didn't even look that bad. It didn't look like a mortal wound. Perhaps he could fix it. Perhaps it was just a scratch. She wasn't dead and never would be if he had anything to do with fate.

"Do you wanna play a game?" He asked her.

She nodded again, slower this time.

They were going to play doctor. She was going to be the doctor first, he had told her so. She started to smile and took her role. When her turn was done, it was his. The boy said he would have to bandage her up, and escorted her to the bathroom. Reaching into the medicine cabinet, he talked to his sister calmly, trying to keep her mind off of the present state of things. The screams outside had died down considerably, but the occasional noise did pierce their eardrums from farther down the street. It seemed to be over quickly. Help would be there soon, he told her, and then they could leave and be safe. But as he was dressing the wound, he glanced at her expression. She nodded grimly. Neither of them mentioned their parents.

When he finished wrapping her arm, they went back into their parents' room and sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard. They lay like this for an indistinguishable amount of time, watching the sky outside. The boy had his arm around her and she lay in his lap, absentmindedly sucking her thumb. He stopped trying to swat her thumb away. She could do as she liked while she still could. He was at a loss and he didn't want to make the decision so soon. He wasn't able to do this yet. Nothing had ever prepared him for this. And that was the most devastating predicament about the end of the world. Children could no longer be children, and he despised that he'd have to live in that kind of world while his sister suffered, never accomplishing her childhood. How could he protect her now? The boy let the question hang in the air inside his mind as his rested his chin on the top of her head. His sister's rhythmic breathing told him she had fallen asleep. Looking down, he patted her hair and kissed her forehead, which was beginning to heat up.

He lay with her like that into the late afternoon as the sunset began to spread its colors over the town, ignorant of the fear and turmoil and chaos its beams entertained. He wondered what he could do to keep her innocence, her humanity, intact. Realization peaked, crawling through his skin in slow agony. Clearing his throat, his next breath told him tears had fallen down his cheeks. Bringing his free arm up to his face, he was vaguely aware that more tears were cascading in the silence that surrounded them. He couldn't stop them if wanted to; they were too much for him. Careful not to let any fall upon his sister's head, he slid out from under her and pulled the spare blanket from the end of the bed up and over her body. She curled up unconsciously and sighed. It broke him to see her look wholly human.

It was that break that made his decision. And before he could turn back on it, he walked downstairs and retrieved a knife from the cutting block. He walked back to the study and, without hesitation, ripped his staff from the decomposing mass. He cleaned off the end and holstered it again. It was a comforting, nostalgic weight that made him believe he was fourteen again and in his gym, practicing his martial arts. But this time, there was no tournament at the end, there was no applause, and there was no forfeiting from this. He walked up to the room again with tears and blood mixing down his chin. He could protect her. It would be at his expense, but he could save her.

The boy changed his clothes after that. He discarded the now-red shirt, soaked and heavy as it was. The vest was of no use, either. His pants, however, were the last clean pair he had─ doing laundry was a boring chore─ and he would have to make do with their patchy appearance. His shoes were downstairs; he didn't bother. His staff, still within its holster, lay against his bedroom door. Without thought, he donned his favorite blue sweatshirt and fell onto his bed. He lay where he fell, staring out the window. The sun was gone, and the brightest moon had taken its place. The fullness seemed to pulsate and speak to him, but he ignored its caress. Looking at the sky, everything seemed normal. Nothing could be wrong when you looked at the sky.

But everything was wrong. He reached for his pillow, buried his face in its thread, and screamed.

It was in the early morning hours when he heard their screams. The front door was directly below his room, and the tortured sleep he'd endured lent itself to a state of incessant alertness. The boy stood up and grabbed his staff, swinging the holster across his back. He grabbed a pocket knife from his nightstand drawer and prayed it would be enough. But what good was praying? He shoved it in his pocket and walked out of the room. He paused at the door to his parents' room. It was shut, as it should be. Clearing his throat, he walked down the stairs and stopped again at the study room. It was also shut. Next was the front door. It was shut, but it creaked and groaned with the unnatural weight set against it. The chairs were bending and a heartbeat away from splintering. He stared with a blank expression. It was time to leave.

After a few minutes of gathering some spare things, he let out his last breath in what had been his home for seventeen years. Then, as he left out the back door, he struck the match.

Presently, the boy stood again. It was dangerous to stay in the alley. Holstering his staff, he stepped out onto the side street opposite from where he'd seen the army vehicle. He'd already seen two people─ indeed, they were fully people─ get shot down by one of them. There was no chance they'd be taking survivors. And he understood why. They seemed almost normal─ but that was early on. Perhaps their bodies would degrade into the glorified cinematic zombies he'd known so much more about. But he didn't hope nor dwell on the thought for long. He wasn't one to have human thoughts anymore. It was ironic, really. He didn't feel the need for anything human, and yet he was still completely alive. Wrinkling his nose at the thought, he made his way toward the edge of the suburbs. Hopefully there would be a space where he could bypass everything and make his way toward the next town.

But his hopes were dashed again. The houses, painted mockingly bright, only gave way to a fence that towered above the shingled roofs. At the top were barbed wires, shining in the early morning light. Scrutinizing the scene in front of him, he noticed a gap in the gruesome wires. From what the boy could see, it seemed to be vacated. They must have seen the fire coming from the other side of the town and gone to check it out. A stupid decision, really. He'd already taken out a good number of them with the blast. He felt more at ease, although his mind was far from being that case.

The boy bit his lip and readied himself to sprint. He could scale the fence if he did it just right. The wind carried itself toward him, as if willing him onward. Dashing forward, he wished there were a better way to carry his staff, because it was bouncing off the back of his legs and making them really sore, really fast. Ignoring it like he was ignoring everything else, the boy jumped and started climbing the fence. He had reached the top and paused, glancing around warily. Until he got past the fence and into the forest, he was in the open, vulnerable. Quickly taking off the staff's holster, he launched it over toward freedom and watched as it bounced on its side and rolled down the slight decline. Sure that he was ready, the boy threw his leg over the wires and straddled the top of the fence without the barbs. Several angry voices broke his concentration and he latched onto the top for dear life, wondering if he would fall.

"Get down from there!" The boy saw two burly men running his way, rifles aimed at him. He cleared his throat but didn't move.

"What's your name, boy?" The first one called.

"He's probably turned," the second man called, smacking the first man in the back of the head, "there's no point in asking him!"

"I'm not one of them!" The boy yelled. If there was any sense of doubt wading between those two men, he would seize the opportunity. He sat up on the fence slowly and showed his hands─ but relieved and upset that he had tossed his staff on the other side. "I'm not infected!"

"Do you have any bite marks? There's a lot of blood on you," the second man walked closer, never taking his rifle off of the boy's face.

"No, none of the blood's mine, I swear," the boy tried to reason with them. "I had to kill a lot of them to get here. I couldn't find help anywhere!" He wasn't sure what he was trying to accomplish, other than prove the fact that he could speak sentences far beyond the ability of... well, those things.

The men whispered to each other, glancing furtively back at the boy every few seconds. There were nods, there were shakes, yes's and no's, and it seemed like they were getting nowhere. The boy debated hopping off the fence and making a run for it, but the gleam of their rifles was unnerving as they were trained on him intensely. It wouldn't matter if he died, but he didn't want to, not yet. He had to do something for his sister. Something she would never be able to do herself. Clearing his throat, he tried to speak again.

"My name's Jackson! You guys will help me, right? I'm human, like you are!" It was all he could cling to, but he didn't believe it to be true. He killed his family, turned, infected, or otherwise. Four people. Four different sources of blood on his body. He didn't think he would ever be clean again, but he had to try. "I don't have any bites, some scratches, sure, but no bites!"

That seemed to get their attention. Nodding in unison, Jackson heard the rifles click and his stomach nearly heaved. "We are under orders!" As if that's an excuse, the boy thought bitterly. He closed his eyes and waited for the blow. He waited for the shock, the fall, and the blackness. He waited to die, knowing he was utterly stuck.

Then something happened. One of the men screamed and a shot went off, but in the wrong direction. Jackson's eyes flew wide open and witnessed something he thought he wouldn't see again. The first man was hopping on one foot, yelling obscenities and whipping his gun into the grass. It was after a moment that the boy could see a hand─ bloody, but not broken─ attached firmly to the man's leg. The second guy was freaked and terrified despite whatever training he should have had. His gun wavered between his companion and the boy on the fence. Jackson froze, waiting to see what the second man would choose. Ultimately, the man turned to the first one and said something that was too quiet for the boy to hear over the screeches and groans of the... thing. It must have been a prayer or last words of some sort, because the man aimed his rifle at his friend and shot. The first man must have been bitten in the skirmish. A second shot rang out, and Jackson didn't want to know what else would happen. Several more shots occurred, however, and that made him check before swinging his other leg into a chain link on the opposite side. The second man was running away now, and he saw why.

There were upwards of twenty, maybe more, infected people sprinting after the military man. He stood his ground and kept shooting. Jackson yelled at him to come and climb the fence. He couldn't stand to see anymore death. But the man didn't answer, and the boy watched as he was overrun. Tears forming in his eyes once again, he forced his body to clamber down the fence. Hitting the ground hard, he rolled sideways as a pain in his ankle throbbed. Despite his best efforts to suppress his agony, one of the reanimated bodies turned its attention toward the fence. Fear gripped his heart and he staggered backwards, trying to reach for his staff. It was still a few feet behind him, down the small hill. Jackson waited a moment, wondering if they would be strong enough to tear down the fence if they wanted to. The creature clawed the fence, grasping it haphazardly. It looked at him with vacant blue eyes and gaping jaws. His skin was darker, still filled with some sort of life. He wasn't completely gone, not yet, but he was human enough that Jackson wouldn't even try to kill him.

The boy stood slowly, keeping his eyes on the thing. Warily, Jackson backed away and crouched, grabbing his staff without breaking eye contact. The thing tilted its head, eyebrows arched in question. It opened its mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Slapping the fence with one hand, the creature shook his head and moaned low in warning. Jackson's heart raced. Could this thing understand him? Was it trying to say something? Whatever it wanted to tell him, Jackson didn't want to hear it. He'd had enough of this nightmare. Shouldering his staff's holster, the boy turned away and walked into the forest, an air of finality heavy in his lungs.

A/N: So what do you guys think?

If you like the style, you should check out my other works, if you haven't already! They aren't nearly as gruesome as this one, so don't worry about that. You can go to my profile for my other stories. They are mainly adventure-based, but there is also humor and perhaps some romance. ;)

Have a wonderful day!