I pushed myself through the small gap Jonathan had cleared for me. I surveyed the area, my katana out and awaiting any zombies that might possibly be hiding in the shadows.

It's odd for a nice cabin to be borderd up and no one inside.

"Well?" Jonathan whispered. He hated sending me into possible danger. But he couldn't fit in the gap and I wanted a roof over my head before I fell asleep.

I pressed myself against the door and whispered back "I'm going to check for a window you can climb in." then quietly crept further into the house.

I hated when it was so quiet. It made me jumpy and anxious. I could hears sounds like moans, but couldn't tell if I had company or the wind was trying to blow the house away.

I entered the first room on my right, which turned out to be a living room. It was covered in dust and grime. Pictures hung on the wall, a television sat in the corner and I could clearly see a dark splotch on the rug that didn't match the design.

The windows to the living room were bordered up. Onto the next room.

I entered a kitchen that had a fowl smell. The source of which was the rotting food in the open fridge. Looking around the room, I saw a window that wasn't bordered up. When I inspected it, I realised why.

The cabin was on a small cliff. The window showed a porch which was only accessible through a sliding door barricaded with a lot of wooden furniture.

Luckily I had rope in my bag which should be long enough to pull Jon up. I quickly and silently walked back to the door where the silhouette of Jon was easily seen. He was shifting from one foot to the other.

"Jon?"

"Any luck?" He asked. Relief and worry clear in his voice.

There's a window in the back that's not barricaded. It's on a cliff though. I have a rope which should be able to reach you and I can pull you in." I whispered back.

Jon was silent for a moment before I heard him sigh. "Okay. I'll meet you back there." and his silhouette was gone.

I quietly and quickly raced back to the window, took off the rucksack on my back that contained all of my stuff and found the rope. I had no idea on where I could tie it. I would have to tie it around my middle and hope I didn't slice in two.

Taking a deep breath, I quickly did a knot my dad taught me before throwing the other end out the window which I had to pry open.

A minute or two later, I felt it tug. Using all my strength, I pulled the rope which hopefully held my brother at the other end. We couldn't call to one another as it would notify any near by zombies.

After what felt like hours, I finally saw a hand reach the windowsill. I ran forward and gripped the surprising warm hand and pulled. I felt instant relief when the familiar dirty white hair of my brother came into view.

It took a while to pull his whole body through the window, but when we were finally both in the cabin, we sank to the ground and breathed deeply from the excursion.

"We're going to have to start eating better Clare. It's ridiculous how weak we are." Jonathan said after catching his breath.

I shook my head, frowning when my long and dirty red curls hit my face. Time for a hair cut.

"What can we do Jon? It's not like there's a buffet ready for us behind every tree!" I said, my voice still low as we had yet to explore the cabin.

We had came across deer plenty of times, but we caught one and took whatever meat we could off the body. We didn't take too much meat with us because apparently, zombies liked animal meat as well and could follow it easily. So we had to survive on a small amount of meat a long with whatever vegetation we could find that was edible.

He took a deep sigh before replying. "Maybe...we could...go into a city and-"

"What?! Jon, that's suicide!"

Jon looked at me with sad green eyes. The same green eyes we both inherited from our mother. "Clare...we're not living. We're walking aimlessly in a forest, going no where and starving ourselves. We barely survived winter and now we're both incredibly weak. We need to take a risk."

"Yeah, but-" I stopped speaking, my ears perking up. "Did you hear that?" I whispered.

Jonathan frowned before his expression morphed to annoyance as the sound of hungry growls came from below us.