Whitney rests on the side of a tree. It's not without reason, we just managed to outrun a horde of the dead.
She coughs viciously. Noah sits next to her, giving her water and making sure that she feels okay.
Meanwhile, my father and Riley argue over what to do next.
"We can't just let her hold us up! We hardly know who she is and now she's a burden. What's the point?" Riley hisses.
"She's a person too, you idiot." snaps my father. "What if that was you? That could be us. We need to stick together, not pull apart."
Whitney's head bobs a little bit, and she suddenly slumps over.
"It's probably hunger." says Noah. "Combined with that run, she's probably really tired."
"Whatever." says Riley. "Just watch her."
I look down at Whitney and notice something on her leg. Is that a scrape? No, they're not circular like that.
My mind is reeling, I've heard of this before. And I remember, but it's too late.
Because Whitney wasn't tired, she was bit. She died right next to Noah.
I barely have time to shout his name before Whitney turns, and sinks her teeth into his throat.
Noah screams, and falls to the ground, Whitney on top of him. James screams in horror at the sight of his brother being attacked, and rushes over.
Whitney turns her attention to James, and takes a chunk from his arm before Travis puts a bullet in her head.
Noah is clearly dead at this point. His blood covers James and Whitney, caking the grass in a red colour. Another gunshot, this time for Noah, comes from Riley's gun.
"I couldn't let him turn." Riley mumbles to himself, shocked at what just happened in front of him.
"He's bit!" screeches Holly. "Oh god, what do we do, what do we do!?" she throws herself into my mothers arms and begins crying.
"Everyone quiet down!" whispers Travis. "More will hear. That's not what we need right now."
"Maybe there's a cure at Fort Benning!" my mother says, a desperate look in her eyes. She has seen this play out before.
My father nods. "Good idea, Paula. That's the first place where they would take it. A military base where it could be easily distributed."
"If it even exists." adds Travis, looking away from James' bite. "Also, someone bandage that shit please."
"Then we have to hurry." I say, ignoring Travis. "He's running out of time."
My mother nears James, a small first aid kit in her hand. "I'll patch you up James. Don't worry, it won't take long."
He groans in response, looking back at Noah.
"Can we hurry, please?" asks Holly, trying not to cry. "I don't want to see any more of this shit. I want to be safe."
We all want to be safe.
James is really slowing us down. Since he was bit, we've moved half as fast as we did before. Even Whitney, who hid her bite from us, was faster than him.
Luckily, we've moved into an open section of the highway, where the suburbs on the side have been replaced by open field.
Unluckily, abandoned cars sit bumper to bumper. This slows us down even more, we have to be cautious that those things don't pop out and kill anyone else.
Riley had shot Noah in the head before he turned. It was the humane thing to do, I guess. His greatest fear was becoming one of those things. It felt right to keep him from that. I feel especially shitty about Noah's death because I had promised him that the whole group would make it to Fort Benning.
But I need to put that behind me if I want to make it out of this, or get James out of this. Our demeanour is rushed now, because we know that James' only hope is Fort Benning.
James' arms are around the shoulders of Travis and I. His bandage rubs on the back of my neck and I find myself praying that this shit isn't transmitted by touch. We now move in the middle, with my mother and Holly taking our place in the back, my father and Riley still in the front.
I try making small talk with Travis, but it's like talking to a wall. The guy either gives one word responses or short sentences. He's a total mystery and he probably knows it.
Distracted by my futile attempt at conversation, I did not notice the transport truck turned on its side in front of us, effectively blocking this side of highway.
"Well shit." says my father.
"Yeah, shits right!" exclaims Riley, seemingly snapped out of his shock. "Look behind you!"
It's the horde from before. The horde that we barely escaped from before Whitney died and took Noah with her.
Frantically looking around, my father spots a large, mud-filled ditch that divides the highway in half.
"Get in the ditch!" hisses my father. "We can't outrun these things, get ready to shoot!"
There must be at least 20 of them. Were they following us? How did they know we were here?
"Hurry! We have to get James down there!" I shout to Travis.
James is limping slower than before, and we lag behind the rest.
"Paula. Holly." my father says, looking the two women in the eyes, as Travis and I arrive with James. He points to the other side of the ditch, where the other half of the highway is. "You two need to get James over there. Kill any of those things that get close."
Without a response, the women begin to drag the nearly lifeless James through the wide ditch, trudging through mud and water.
In maybe thirty seconds, they are on us. A constant stream of our bullets fly into the undead, sometimes a stray may hit a shoulder or stomach, but that doesn't seem to bother them.
The situation seems under control, until of course it isn't.
As the last creature in front of us falls, a scream comes from the other side of the highway. A smaller group of the undead have converged on the girls and James.
Holly and my mother try their best to shoot them, to no avail. Nicked shoulders, and complete misses is all that they seem to get.
The rest of us are sprinting to get to them, but the bog in the wide ditch trips us up and slows us down. Riley falls in and loses his gun.
I watch in terror as the creatures close in on my mother, Holly, and the nearly dead James.
Just as the situation seems hopeless, a different sound of gunfire starts. Extremely fast and coordinated, the undead surrounding the girls and James suddenly collapse. Out of the forest, comes a new group of men. They wear some type of riot gear and carry automatic weapons.
They're military.
The girls begin to cry. James weakly laughs in relief. Riley retrieves his gun from the bog, and the rest of us reach the military men.
"My name is Sargent Dawson." says the biggest and bulkiest man of the group. "You civilians need any help?"