Corpse Harvest, Chapter 2:
Kevin yawned and then fidgeted in an attempt to gain the most comfort possible out of the back of the rickety wagon he was riding in. He was not looking forward to this trip earlier, but when it turned out that there were no cars any lower than the port city on the northern tip of Castanet Island and that he would be traveling by horse-drawn carts all the way down the island, he seriously considered turning back. But there was no way he could do that... his sister would kill him.
Kevin made a grunt of annoyance as the wheel of the wagon hit a bump that sent him reeling for just a moment. "Sorry 'bout that! Roads are a little rough out here!" the wagon's rider said. Kevin sighed and attempted to get comfortable yet again with minimal success.
"So, any particular reason you're heading out to Harmonica Town? Lovely little place, but its remote location certainly deters some people from visiting. You're from the mainland right? A city boy?" the cart rider asked.
"Um... yes," Kevin responded, a bit taken aback by the man's lucky guess. "How did you know?"
"You're certainly not moving there, are you? Awful scant if that's the case."
"No, not at all. My sister's forcing me to come out here and help her work. And since I can't get a job back at the city, the whole family pressured me to go. Not that I had a choice as soon as my sister told me to come. It's... not pretty when you don't do what she wants. But how did you guess I was from the city?" Kevin asked.
"You're the first farmer I've seen that wears a bowtie around his neck!" the wagon rider exclaimed with a chuckle.
"H-Hey! It keeps bugs from biting!" Kevin exclaimed, embarrassed. I knew I should have got a scarf of some sort instead... he thought to himself.
"Don't worry about it, I'm sure you'll do fine if you have a lick of farming skill in you," the wagon rider said. There was a bit of silence, which ended with the rider chuckling some more. "Well, hopefully your sister's good enough at farming to coach you, though I suspect she is. Angela Wilson your sister?"
"Okay, how did you guess that one? Are you psychic?" Kevin asked incredulously.
"Not at all. Just good at figuring out folk. 'Sides, there are only three farms out there, and the family of two of them are all accounted for. Met your sister, once. I'm sort of the main ferryman on this island. You two seem to have the same hair curl."
"Ah, yes. That," Kevin said with distaste as he reached up and tried to comb down the curl with his hands. It was a futile attempt, as it sprung right back into place every time. "Everyone in the family has something like that, but I'm the one cursed to not look good with it. I tried cutting it off once, but I'd rather there be a curl than an even more off-putting stump."
The wagon rider chuckled once more. "Well you seem like a nice fellow. Any reason you're not looking forward to this job that's been put into your hands? The town's a lovely little place... some of the friendliest folk on this island, too."
"My sister will suck out any joy I may get out of this. She's rather brutal when she gets to bossing others around..." Kevin sighed. He wished there was something else to look at other than the wagon, the rider, the horse, or rolling fields and hills.
"From what I've heard, she's real nice. It's been at least a year since I took her to Harmonica Town... the place was in a bit of rough spot because of a drought that's thankfully over now, and she helped the town out quite a bit. Made it a better place."
"Nice to everyone except the baby brother of the family," Kevin sighed. "I mean, sure, she'll unleash the beast when you push her buttons, but I seem to be the only one that constantly has her in that state."
The wagon rider stopped. Where they here? Kevin looked around, but didn't see anything.
"End of the road," the wagon rider said. "Just follow the path a little more and you'll end up at Flute Fields. The folk there should be able to take you to where you need to go."
Kevin eagerly hopped out of the back of the wagon, stretching to help ease the cramps he had suffered sitting in the rickety thing. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and gave the rider a few bills. The rider tipped his hat at Kevin and made his horse turn around.
"I'm sure you'll enjoy your time here. You might even find yourself a pretty lass!' the wagon rider exclaimed cheerfully before he flicked the horse's reins, causing it to move.
I sure hope so... Kevin thought bitterly. He watched the wagon slowly fade over the horizon and then mustered up the strength to move into the town's property. He couldn't just wait it out... he'd have to confront this task eventually.
He followed the path like the wagon rider instructed, and it curved and descended around a large hill until he saw a ranch. The first sign of civilization ever since he hopped on the wagon... well, he had no idea how much time had passed. Certainly less than the trip seemed to take. Which was months.
Well, he could see why the wagon rider let him off early. There wasn't much room for the horse to turn around here and there was a gate with a rope signaling the entry point of Flute Fields. There was a sign next to it, informing him that the ranch was called Horn Ranch. He shook his head at that, criticizing it in his head. Was everything in this town going to be named after musical instruments?
Kevin peered past the gate and didn't see anyone outside, so he just climbed over it. He walked past the barns of Horn Ranch and to the nearest house, likely where the family that ran the ranch stayed. He knocked on the door. No response. He knocked again. More silence. He pressed his ear up against the door and didn't hear anything. The curtains were closed on the windows, so he couldn't see if anyone was inside, but it certainly sounded like it was empty. He didn't show up on a festival day or something, did he?
Following the guidance of dirt paths and signs, he shortly arrived at another establishment in the fields, Marimba Farm. This destroyed any doubt that everything in the town wasn't named after instruments, and Kevin felt that this fact would subtly annoy him for undetermined reasons. Someone else seemed to live next to the farm.
As he walked up to the buildings, he froze in his tracks. Was that... blood on the ground? He looked around and didn't see anything... this place was close to a forest, so maybe a wild animal killed another here? Well, hopefully people were home so he could ask about it. He tried the farm first and then the home. Similar to Horn Ranch, nobody responded and there was no way of peering inside of the houses. So much for the town's hospitality that the wagon rider sold him on.
Kevin continued following the pathways and signs. It seemed that his sister's farm was between Flute Fields and Harmonica Town. Sunrise Farm... perhaps the only place here not named after music, and that was nice. He couldn't believe he was thinking this, but he hoped his sister was there just so he could meet somebody.
He arrived at the quaint little farm and admired the signs of his sister's work. The fields were full of crops, and she had a nice coop and barn that were probably full of animals. He walked up to the building, hesitated, and knocked on the door. To his surprise, the door was ajar, creaking open as his knuckles made contact with it. He peered into this house. Nobody was home, but the lights were still on. Strange... Kevin flipped the lights off and closed the door. He walked around the farm for a bit, calling out his sister's name, but receiving no response.
Weirded out and slightly spooked, Kevin walked down the dirt path he arrived on and headed towards Harmonica Town. Surely he would find people there... right? If this was all some joke his sister played on him... he'd definitely leave, her wrath be damned.
He wasn't sure if he should feel annoyed or scared when he arrived in the town to see nobody about. All he could hear were the distant ocean waves rolling onto the beach, as well as the cries of seagulls. The town was certainly neat, being terraced instead of having a traditional layout. He wondered if you could hear people walking above you in the lower houses...
He peered around a bit more and became fed up with not seeing anybody. "Is anyone there?" he called out. He heard a few quiet murmurs. Finally! The town wasn't dead after all!
He peered down the lowest level of the town and saw some people in the distance. He walked forward, and the first person he saw was a portly man in a rather posh outfit with gray hair made up in an old-timey style. Kevin called out to the man, who turned around and... was this a joke?
The man growled as he slowly walked towards Kevin like a drunk. Blood stained his mouth, hands, and the front of his suit... and his eyes were entirely white. Zombies? Angela wouldn't go out of her way to pull off a prank like this, would she? She didn't even like horror movies...
And it wasn't just this man; there were two others behind him: a young man with platinum blond hair that had a single curl like Kevin's, and an older man with short blue-gray hair. The younger man had plaid pants and a nice sweater that was slightly torn and stained with blood. The older man was wearing a light blue work shirt, brown pants, and a darker blue apron... but the apron and shirt had been torn apart around his stomach area, which had been torn into. A few lone intestines dangled from the gaping wound.
Kevin was terrified and could feel his breakfast rushing up into his mouth. He forced it back down and took a few steps back in shock. All three of them had white eyes and blood on them... they looked so real. This was beyond a practical joke. This was happening. Zombies were real!
Kevin turned around and ran back to the concrete pathway. He was about to follow it, where ever it took him, but blocking his path was another zombie: a bespectacled old woman with her long gray hair tied back into a ponytail, her head framed by a purple scarf tied around it. Kevin sharply turned to his left, running into the middle layer of the town. There were a few more zombies surrounding the first building. Kevin didn't take any time in his flight to take a good look at them or to be concerned as to why they were gathering around that building. He booked it right past them and went into the next building, which was pink in color.
He entered and slammed the door behind him. He seemed to have entered an inn, as there was a receptionist's desk (with some blood splatters over there) and a kitchen of sorts. Kevin tried to calm down and gather his thoughts, but he heard more ghastly moans. There were some in here, too!
Three of them emerged from a side door and shambled towards Kevin. There was an older lady, short and stout, with gray-tinted lavender hair tied into two pigtails and a bun atop her head, a dark bite mark bleeding through a tattered spot on her yellow shirt. A man wearing a green vest with well-groomed gray hair, bite marks on his neck and one beneath his gray shirt was behind the older lady. Next to him was a woman with short light brown hair wearing a green dress, a bite mark clearly visible on one of her exposed shoulders.
Kevin didn't know what to do, so he grabbed the nearest chair in the dining area of the inn's lobby and readied for the zombies to near. The old woman lunged at him, and he thrust the chair forward, knocking her back into the man and causing both of them to tumble down. That did little to deter them, as they were already getting back up and the woman was close to him.
She snarled at him as she grabbed at him, her teeth gnashing in anticipation of eating him. Kevin yelled in a mixture of anger and fright as he swung the chair as hard as he could at her head. Three of the legs broke off on impact, but the blow did little else than agitate her. Kevin backed up as she drew closer. He panicked and threw the rest of the chair at her, but that also did nothing other than stagger her momentarily.
Kevin frantically looked around and saw flowers in a vase on the receptionist's desk. He grabbed it and turned around to see that the woman was right behind him. He smashed the vase against her head, the flowers falling to the ground as water and chunks of porcelain slid down her head. The woman grabbed him and pushed him, causing the back of his head to hit the desk. This would have disoriented him if not for his adrenaline. The woman was now on him, her sharp nails digging into his shirt as her head drew near for a bite. Kevin was struggling with her, holding her back by the neck with one hand as the other reached up to the top of the desk for something, anything to use to fend her off. The other two zombies were getting closer...
Kevin grasped a small object that felt like a pen. That might actually work. He quickly removed it from its holster and jammed the writing utensil deep into the woman's eye. She stopped moving and making noise as her body momentarily stiffened and then went limp. Kevin pushed her body off of him and scrambled to the side as the older woman dove at him.
He walked over to a nearby table and flipped it, causing it to knock over the man that was nearby. With him momentarily downed again, Kevin walked over to the old woman and grabbed a hand full of hair. Before she recovered and turned to try and bite him, he slammed her face onto the desk, causing a loud thud. She was still groaning and struggling against his grip, so Kevin continued. Each slam sounded more painful as crunches and wet sounds accentuated each thud, blood and teeth being sent flying with each blow. The older woman was soon dead, and Kevin quickly let go before blood and brain matter leaked down onto his hands.
He turned around to see the man lunging right at him. He had taken too long! He was grabbed by the man and tried to struggle, but the man had him in a bear hug and was moving towards his neck. No! He was going to be killed and become one of them!
Another thud was heard, and Kevin was suddenly released from the man's grip. He opened his eyes to see a sorely missed sight: another person! It was a young lady around his age with scruffy blonde hair that was accentuated with, in Kevin's opinion, two small superfluous pigtails. She wore a pink poofy and frilly short dress befitting of a waitress with a short white apron tied over it. Some blood had splattered onto the apron from the blow she dealt to the man. Kevin glanced down to see his head had been caved in by a cash register. He was suddenly embraced by the girl, who openly wept into his shoulder. Taken aback, Kevin shushed her and gently brushed her hair with his hand.
"Hey, hey... it's okay now..." he said. The girl let go of him... her eyes were red and puffy. She had been crying quite a bit. She had been trapped in here with those things... and he now noticed that she looked a bit like the zombie woman that he had killed.
"Oh no..." Kevin said, a horrible realization washing over him. "Were they your family?"
The girl's eyes began to tear up again. She bit her lip and glanced down at their bodies before nodding.
"I'm so, so sorry..." Kevin said. "What... what the hell happened here? Where is everyone? Are you the only one left?"
"I don't really know..." she said quietly. "I just know that I can't thank you enough for saving me, whoever you are."
"You saved my life, too," Kevin said. "And I'm Angela's younger brother. Looks like she picked a hell of a time to ask for me to come out here..." he added bitterly.
"My name is Maya," the girl said. "And... we're not alone..." she added, her voice lowering and dying out into a whimper as she pointed at the open side door that Maya's family had come from.
Kevin heard it: another zombie lowly moaning, this one a man. Slowly emerging from the side door was a young man with short curly strawberry blond hair. Blood was scattered all throughout his tattered clothing, the dark blue apron slightly torn, his white shirt more so. Chunks were missing from his neck and arms, and he had significantly less blood around his mouth.
"Chase tried to protect me. He sacrificed himself so I could get away, but... but I was so scared..." Maya cried quietly. It was obvious from her tone of voice that she deeply cared about this man.
"Then I'll put him out of his misery..." Kevin said lowly as he walked forward, grabbing one of the broken-off chair legs on the floor. He gripped the wooden leg like a baseball bat, taking deep breaths as Chase shambled towards him.
"Don't do it..." Maya whimpered.
"I have to," Kevin affirmed. "We just can't leave him like this."
Maya had no response but to cry as Kevin yelled in anger. He raised the chair leg and brought it down on Chase's head, smacking it hard enough to send him crashing into the floor. Maya screamed bloody murder as Kevin bashed Chase's head several more times until he had cracked his skull and ended his life. He dropped the chair leg and turned away from the body, feeling sick and confused.
"We need to leave," Kevin said in a sudden realization. The commotion caused in this building may have been audible to the zombies outside. Maya seemed to be in too much despair to move on her own, so Kevin grabbed her hand and guided her towards the door.
"Why?" she sobbed. Kevin didn't know if that was directed towards his command or if it was asked because he killed Chase. Kevin's response assumed the former. "There are more of them surrounding the building next door. Do you have any idea where anyone else is? Flute Fields and my sister's farm are empty."
It was at this point that the adrenaline faded and reality set back in. His sister was in danger, and he had no idea if she was safe, injured, or one of those things. He wanted to flee this town, to just run back home and forget all about what he just witnessed and did. This was just some crazy nightmare... but it was real. And if he left it alone, it would spread. He would be dooming these people to a fate worse than death. And he couldn't live with himself if he did that.
"I... I would guess the church," Maya said quietly, but at least she sounded surer of herself. She let go of his hand and took a few steps forward, opening the doors of the inn. "You wouldn't know where it is," she added in a whisper. Kevin pointed in the direction to go, and the two of you slipped out of the building past the notice of the nearby zombies.
With some stairs taking both of them to the top terrace (which was free of the undead), the two ran back onto the concrete pathway. Maya led Kevin to the way he was heading before that old woman zombie stopped him. The path curved around a cliffside and led to a quaint little church. There seemed to be no zombies around. As they approached the church doors, they could hear tumultuous conversation inside, dampened by the building. There were people inside!
Kevin excitedly threw open the doors of the church, and silence washed over the people inside as they turned to look at the doors. There were many people in the church, more than ten! Kevin would have counted, but he saw Angela and the unmistakable lone curl in her brown hair and immediately ran forward to hug his sister.
"You're okay!" he exclaimed with relief.
"Oh God, Kevin! I completely forgot about you!" Angela said as they stopped embracing. "I can't imagine how showing up at this time might have been..."
"Maya's safe!" some of the villagers cheered as she entered the church and closed the doors behind her. The villagers began quietly discussing amongst themselves.
"Do you have any idea what's going on?" Kevin asked his sister.
"None of us do, really. This all just started about an hour ago... we only recently gathered here in the church. In fact, we were about to..." Angela started before trailing off. She walked away from Kevin, walking to the church's podium.
"Okay everyone, listen up!" Angela shouted in an authoritative tone (or, as Kevin would describe it, the "bitchy bossy voice"). Everyone stopped talking and turned to look her way. "We need to assess the situation here. First off, the man here who saved Maya is my baby brother, Kevin. He's here because I told him to come and help me out. Shit hit the fan a bit before he showed up, so now he's in this with us. He'll be a great helping hand. I know he will."
Kevin noticed that most of the villagers were now looking at him. Angela turned to her brother. "I'm going to introduce you to everyone real quick. You've saved Maya... she was a waitress at the Ocarina Inn that was run by her family... which, if they're not here..."
"Yeah..." Kevin said lowly, confirming what his sister was implying.
"Right..." Angela said with a heavy-hearted sigh. "Well, that family over there is who you would have met the first as you went into the town. That's Cain and Hanna with their daughter, Renee... they run the Horn Ranch." Cain was a strong and muscular man with short brown hair wearing blue work jeans and a yellow shirt. Hanna was a slightly plump woman with light brown hair fashioned into a hoop-shaped ponytail. Renee was a young woman with short brown hair (with two long bangs framing her face) wearing a yellow and orange work dress. The two women of the family appeared distraught, but Cain seemed calm, albeit lost in troubling thought.
"Those two are Ruth and her daughter Anissa who ran the Marimba Farm... the father and younger brother of this family were taken by the zombies." Ruth had chin-length black hair, wore a dark blue dress with a bright green apron over it, and was quietly sobbing. Anissa was a beautiful girl with long black hair wearing a dress with a floral design on it. Her gaze showed that she was lost deep in thought, or perhaps shocked by everything that had happened.
"That's Kathy and her father, Hayden. They owned the Brass Bar here in town." Hayden was a fierce-looking burly man that was bald on the top of his head. He had a big bushy brown beard, a white button-up shirt with an open brown vest over it, and blue jeans. Kathy was a rather pretty lady with her dark blonde hair tied back in a long ponytail. She wore a blue shirt tied to expose her midriff, a rather short brown skirt, and had expensive-looking boots. Kathy was hugging her father, who was quietly stroking her hair and comforting her the best way he could in this crisis.
"Those two are Julius and Owen, who work near the mines. Owen was an apprentice of the blacksmith, and Julius was an apprentice of the gem cutter." Owen was a muscular young man with chestnut spiked hair, brown pants, and a black sleeveless shirt. If Kevin didn't hear Julius' name, he would have assumed the man was a woman. From the long purple hair with yellow streaks in it to the red shirt with ruffled cuffs to the strange cloth sash around his waist, nothing about this man was masculine.
"That girl is Candace... she worked at the tailor here, but I'm pretty sure she's the only survivor from that household..." Indeed, this poor young woman seemed to be quietly drowning in her sorrows. With blue hair fashioned into two large and long pigtails, thick bangs obscuring her eyes, and the pale blue shirt and dark cyan skirt, she didn't seem to be the cheery type with such a cold color scheme. She seemed to be on a perpetual verge of tears.
"And the man in the back is Perry, the pastor of the church," Angela concluded. Kevin hadn't even seen the dark-haired man earlier. He was fidgeting in a corner, looking extremely worried.
"Should we really be wasting our time on introductions?" Owen asked briskly. "Not to sound rude, but there are people in danger out there!"
"We've only just now collected ourselves," Cain spoke calmly. "We need to figure out what we're doing here before rashly going outside. We all know what those things can do to you."
Owen took offense to that and stood up from his pew. "I couldn't save my little cousin, you bastard! I know the pain I feel, and I can see the pain others in here are feeling right now! I won't let anyone else suffer!"
"So are you going to run out there and get yourself killed? Do you even know who to look for?" Hayden said in a stern baritone. This seemed to calm Owen down.
"Call the police..." Ruth murmured, sounding somewhat in shock. "Why haven't we called the police?"
"We'd have to get to a phone first," Julius said, his voice surprisingly deep. Okay, so there was one masculine quality to him. "I don't know how many people here have cell phones, but there's no reception out here. We have no way to prove our claims. They won't help us."
"'Protect and serve,' my ass..." Kathy grumbled to herself.
"So it's only happening here?" Kevin asked.
"Yes... though I don't know if we should feel thankful for that," Angela said with a sigh. "Besides, the city's far off. Even if we could prove ourselves, it would still take some time to get here."
"So what do we do? Make sure everyone's safe? Then what? Do we just abandon our homes and find someone to help us? Some of us have crops and animals that need to be cared for! They just can't be neglected!" Cain asked.
"C-Can't we just kill them all?" Perry piped up, his voice shaky. "Just get rid of them. That would be that."
Maya shook her head, her pigtails flopping around. "No... what I saw back at the inn... I don't want to see it ever again. But every time I close my eyes..."
"I took down three of them," Kevin said. "But just one was enough to almost kill me. If Maya hadn't saved me, I wouldn't be here right now. I wouldn't recommend fighting them."
"Don't we have weapons, dear?" Hanna asked her husband. "Guns?"
"...We do. A few guns just in case. We've never had to use them, thank the Goddess..." Cain said. "So does this mean we're going to fight back?"
"I don't think that's the best course of action until we've saved everyone," Owen said.
"There's also the problem of food and places to sleep," Renee said. "The Ocarina Inn could solve both of those problems, but..."
"I... I don't know if I want to step foot in there," Maya said weakly.
"It's a mess in there," Kevin confirmed. "We'd have to clean it out. And doing it right now isn't the best time... there were zombies outside of the building next door, surrounding it."
"The clinic..." Angela breathed. Kevin saw that some of the villagers seemed confused by him referring to them as "zombies." The more knowledgeable quickly and quietly informed them of what they were, but Kevin was surprised at just how rustic this village was.
He noticed now that Anissa had a notepad and a pencil and was writing things down. "If we're going to save people, we need to know who is accounted for, who is lost, and who have become these creatures..."
"I haven't seen Toby..." Renee said sadly.
"Chase... my family... they're gone... they became those things but now they're dead..." Maya said, about to cry again. Kevin walked over to her and comforted her.
Candace tried speaking at this moment, but her words died in her throat, only replaced by low, shaking sobs.
"We know Craig and Taylor are gone..." Cain said with a deep breath. "I saw Mayor Hamilton, Gill, and Simon out there."
"Ozzie, Paolo, Pascal... they're gone," Hayden said.
"It was chaos as we were trying to get out of the mines district..." Owen said. "I lost Chloe. I couldn't protect her. I know Uncle Ramsey is one of those things. Maybe Barbara, too..."
"Mira's gone," Julius said with a bit of remorse. "I didn't see the carpenters anywhere, nor Phoebe or Calvin... those two might be in the mines, oblivious to this whole mess."
Anissa finished jotting down notes. She then stood up, and everyone else (besides Candace and Perry) gathered around to see what she had written:
ALIVE
Angela, Anissa, Cain, Candace, Hanna, Hayden, Julius, Kathy, Kevin, Maya, Perry, Renee, Ruth
DEAD
Chase, Colleen, Jake, Yolanda
UNDEAD
Barbara (?), Chloe, Craig, Gill, Hamilton, Luna, Mira, Ozzie, Paolo, Pascal, Ramsey, Shelly, Simon, Taylor
LOST
Bo, Calvin, Dale, Irene, Jin, Luke, Phoebe, Samson, Selena, Sue, Toby, the Witch, the Wizard
"Seems like we have our work cut out for us..." Cain said. "If we're in agreement to rescue everyone first, should we split up?"
"We know the clinic is being attacked," Hayden said. "Phoebe and Calvin are in the Garmon Mines. The carpenters could be in the forest next to their home or in the Fugue Forest. Samson and Sue could still be on Toucan Island, and I haven't seen Selena. She could be in danger. Toby could be anywhere, too..."
"Witch? Wizard? Who?" Kevin asked, confused.
"Both are recluses that practice mysticism... they're strange people," Angela explained. "The Witch lives deep in the forest and never comes out... she's probably fine. The Wizard built the observatory in town, but I don't think he's currently here, so you can mark them off the lists." Anissa did so, but added them to the "alive" section, adding "not present" next to their names.
"Do we have enough willing people to even split up?" Julius asked. "Sure, our numbers may be large, but Perry is shaking in his boots and Candace is... out of commission. No offense, but I'm sure most women here aren't willing to face such danger... I don't know if I could handle it, either."
"Then who is willing to do what it has to take to save the others?" Kevin asked, raising his hand to show his determination. He did not like facing off against Maya's family, and Chase obviously meant something to her. He had almost been bitten, and he was still in disbelief that he killed three zombies... but seeing the pain on Maya's face and the following relief of her being safe validated his purpose. Seeing the group of survivors here, and knowing the fates of those who didn't make it... he would do everything he could to ensure that nobody else became one of the walking dead.
Cain, Owen, and Hayden almost simultaneously raised their hands, followed by Angela and Kathy. Nobody else raised their hands.
"Just six, then..." Cain said, shooting glares at some of the people who didn't raise their hands, including his wife and daughter.
"I don't like it either, honey, but it's safer this way!" Hanna exclaimed in a guilty way. "We can't just have everyone go out there!"
"Then we're deciding who is most important..." Hayden said with a heavy sigh. "I can't believe we're doing this. This feels wrong..."
"There's only one choice that makes sense at the moment," Kevin said. "We have to save whoever is in the clinic. They're the closest, and having a doctor would be a big help."
"I agree," Angela said. That often didn't happen. Kevin felt a bit odd that his sister agreed with him.
"Then it's settled... we head to the clinic..." Owen said. The group of six walked towards the church doors, feeling the gazes of the others in the church piercing into their backs.
"Please... be safe. And make it back as yourselves," Anissa said, speaking for the rest of the church.
The group of six said nothing as they opened the double doors and walked outside. The doors closed shut, leaving those in the church alone as they dwelled among their thoughts of fear and regret.