Chapter 7

Hold The Line

I awoke to the sound of a gunshot in the distance.

The others bolted awake along with me. The shot had been loud enough to wake us up, so it must have been close by. Unfortunately it was almost impossible to tell exactly where it came from. We all started gathering our things as we came up with a plan to investigate. Miguel and I decided to take the door that I had found last night out onto the street, and Angie and Arya would follow. Then we would split up and check around the building, circling around it to meet up on the other side. Once we had, we would figure out where to go next.

Miguel and I were just about halfway around the store when we spotted the source of the gunshot. A beautiful woman and a man in a lab coat were running away from a large group of walkers. The man was holding a pistol, and the woman had a small assault rifle. We waved our arms, unable to shout for fear of attracting more zombies. Thankfully they saw us and started running towards us. They followed us as we ran around the building and signaled to the others to go back inside. Once we were sure the two strangers were following, we went back inside as well.

I turned to check on them after we were safely inside. The man was coming through the door, but the woman was aiming her gun at the horde behind us. The sun was just starting to rise, and it illuminated her body with a soft orange light. Her stance was confident and as unbreakable as solid steel. She looked so determined and dauntless, not to mention mesmerizingly beautiful. I only snapped out of it when she fired the rifle several times, taking down a few of the walkers at the front of the crowd. She had the firing rate set low, probably to conserve ammo, but I was more concerned about the noise. "Hey!" I shouted above the sound of her gunfire. "You wanna bring the whole town down on our heads? Get in here!"

She turned to me and nodded. Keeping her gun aimed at the mob, she backed through the door and I closed it behind her. "What was that? You trying to get yourself killed or something?"

She shrugged casually. "I was just thinning the ranks a bit. I intend on taking out as many of these things as I can. However I can." She slung the gun over her shoulder and held out her hand. "My name is Annie."

I stood there like an idiot for five whole seconds before shaking her hand. "Keith. My name is Keith." I turned around to look at the man in the lab coat. He introduced himself as Xavier.

"Well I'm Miguel," My brother said, "And we should probably take you guys to meet the others before Keith's drool starts forming a puddle." I turned to glare at him and he just laughed as he walked back towards our makeshift camp. I chased after him, and Annie and Xavier followed.

We got to the clearing in the middle of the rubble and everyone introduced themselves. Once we had, I asked what they were doing shooting up the place. "We've been looking for a way to cure this disease," Annie explained. "Unfortunately we've also been running into zombies every time we turn a corner. We came here looking for basic supplies, but we got surrounded and decided we'd have to shoot our way out."

"Who exactly is 'we'?" Angie asked skeptically. She seemed a bit disconcerted with the entire situation.

"Well, there were more of us. From the lab, I mean." Xavier looked over at Annie. "The place I was from. Most of them were killed pretty early on. Annie here is just a writer who knows how to handle a gun. We ran into each other on the road and she wanted to help find a way to stop all this madness."

"And the best way to do that is find some way to treat the disease," Annie said. "Although we haven't made very much progress."

"Maybe we could help you," I said. "I used to be an RN, so I know a lot about different diseases. And one of my Uncles used to have a makeshift lab back at the farm. It wasn't much more than a chemistry set in one of the barns, mind you, but if you have equipment of your own then that would be a good place to set it up."

Xavier mulled this over for a second, and then nodded. "Seems like as good a plan as any. We could definitely use the protection, too... What do you think Annie?"

She nodded too. "Sounds great to me. When do we leave?"

I grinned at her. "Give us a second to pack first… Plus we should probably think of a way to get past the zombies knocking on our door."

Angie raised her hand like an overly eager student in the middle of class. "Oh! Can I do it?!"


We were ready to go in less than ten minutes. As we all gathered around the doorway, Angie pulled out a grenade from her pack with one hand, holding one of her pistols in the other. "Ok, so once this goes off, we have a very small window of opportunity. It'll take out all the walkers nearby, but it'll also attract others. I need you all to be ready to run. You can use guns, but conserve ammo as much as possible. Agreed?" We all nodded. I loaded my shotgun.

Angie opened the door just a bit. She pulled the pin. Threw the grenade. Shut the door.

There was a deafening bang and she threw the door wide open. We ran out into the chaos.

I purposefully tried not to notice the effects of the grenade. I mostly succeeded, but the smell still made me want to vomit. I kept moving though, and Annie pushed ahead of me. She looked like she was born for this… strangely free, despite the fact that she was being forced to run away. She had her assault rifle raised, and as we ran she picked off a few of the walkers up ahead.

Arya and Miguel were right beside me, the former with two pistols in hand. Miguel didn't have a gun, but he was able to hit one or two zombies with his slingshot. Still, he made sure to stay as close to me as possible.

Angie brought up the rear, bringing down any zombies that came too close with her own pistols. Xavier was with her, helping her thin out the crowd behind us. With Annie in the lead, we cut a path through town the way we had come. Eventually Miguel ran out of slingshot pellets, switching to his hatchet for protection. Arya, Xavier and Angie used a lot of clips, but thankfully they had a few to spare. I used a few shells myself, and it soon started looking like would have to switch to using my rifle.

At first we were able to keep the walkers well away from the group, but gradually the tide of battle turned against us. With a normal enemy, our display of firepower would most likely have scared off any unarmed forces, and possibly even some well-equipped ones. However, we were facing an enemy that knew no fear, or fatigue for that matter. As we ran on, we started to slow, and the walkers started closing in.

At one point, a zombie almost overtook Annie. Using the last shot I had chambered, I took it down, allowing her to keep moving. She nodded her thanks, and I returned the gesture as I reloaded my shotgun. As I did however, another walker came in from the side towards me. I cursed as it moved towards me, thinking I would have to start fighting hand to hand. Without my spear or knife, that would most likely end in disaster.

Thankfully, my little brother was watching out for me. He swung his hatchet at the undead creature, severing it's arm and knocking it to the side. I was able to reload as he finished the job by decapitating it, and we kept running.

By this point we were almost to the edge of the town. Annie let out a cry of encouragement, spurring us on. We weaved in between cars and trucks, at points even vaulting over the hoods to escape the horde behind us. There were a few more cars on the road, slowing the walkers who had to go around them to reach us. I was also thankful to note that the majority of the walkers were behind us now, as there weren't nearly as many on the road as there had been in the town.

We were pulling ahead of the walkers now. Annie pulled back a bit, and Miguel and I pulled up ahead since we knew the terrain best. After what seemed like both an eternity and a brief moment, we reached the side road that lead to the farm. The walkers were thinning out a bit, but there were still quite a few tailing us. I risked getting out my phone as I ran, calling Alex on speed-dial.

The phone only rang twice before she picked up. "Keith? What's wrong? Where are you guys?"

"We're on our way to where you are, ETA approximately 10 minutes or less. I need you all to be ready for a fight when we get back, just in case. We have zombies on our tail, so be ready with silent weapons; bows and melee weapons only. Got it?" There was a pause where I heard her shouting something to the others.

"We'll see what we can do, but do we really need only silent weapons? We have plenty of guns, and we could take them out faster that way…" I could hear the concern in her voice. I tried my best to calm down, for her sake.

"Only if you absolutely have to. I don't want to attract any extra walkers to your position with gunfire. If we're going to stay at the farm for any length of time, we need to lay low. I'll see you when we get there, ok?" She sighed shakily, but agreed.

I put my phone away, as well as my shotgun. Then I took out my bow as the others covered me. Angie had overheard enough to get what I was doing, and told the others to do the same. It slowed us down a bit, but we were just barely able to hold the zombies at bay. Soon we all had our guns put away in favor of more silent weapons, and we were coming up on the farm fast. There were still a few zombies left, but thankfully it was only a small fraction of the original force that had been chasing us. Still, we had to keep running as fast as we could. There were no more cars to use as cover, and we were at a slight disadvantage since our choice of weapons had been restricted.

We ran through the forest, and then came out into the field that marked the beginning of the final stretch. As we came through the copse of trees that marked the beginning of the driveway, I was relieved to see several figures waiting with weapons ready. As we approached, several arrows streaked through the air and took down the zombies near the front. Our small scouting party finally reached the line that Alex had formed for us, and we turned to join them in defending our new home. With our combined strength, we finally killed off the last of the zombies.

Panting for breath, we finally relaxed. Most of us headed in, although Miguel decided to introduce Annie and Xavier to the rest of the group. I couldn't help but watch as they went, although eventually I turned my gaze towards Alex. We shared a smile and I offered her a high five. She took the offer, laughing a bit. "You made it. I don't know how, but you did. Not only that, it appears you have some new friends."


I told her the whole story as we went inside. She listened to the whole thing with increasingly wide eyes. By the time I was finished the sun was getting pretty high in the sky, so we decided to invite our new guests to lunch. I sat with them and explained our little set up. Xavier decided that he would sleep in the barn where the lab was. At first I was a bit skeptical, but then I realized that the house was getting a bit crowded anyway. Miguel, Rachel, Clayton, Angie, Pablo, Maria, Julia, Kevin and I decided that it would be best if we slept in the barn, while Alex, Carrie, Tim, Chris, Adam, Aaliyah, Nate, and Arya slept in the house. That way we had more room to sleep. While it didn't seem like the best arrangement at first, we had decided to turn off the air conditioning in the house to save power, so it wasn't really much worse in the barn than it was in the house, especially due to the warm late-summer nights we were having. At least, that was the mentality of the more adventuresome people who would be sleeping there. The others decided to just roll with it.

After lunch we started setting up our sleeping bags. There was a lot of room in the barn, and we were able to arrange them in groups so that everyone could sleep with their friends. Annie set hers up near where I was going to sleep with Pablo and Maria.

As we walked back towards the house, I caught up with her. "So what were things like for you before… all this?"

She shrugged. "Not all that great." She looked down at the ground. "Is it a bad thing if I wasn't all that sad to see people die?" She was shaking a bit. I could tell she was remembering something she would rather forget. "I don't know. A lot of people have hurt me in the past. So I wasn't too torn up to see them go. Do you think that makes me a bad person?"

I looked at her. "No. I don't think it does. Of the two of us, I'm probably the bad person." I let out a self-depreciating chuckle. "Trust me, I've made a lot of mistakes. I screw things up, I fail at life. I'm a thoroughly broken person." I remembered Sharon for just a second, her blood on my hands. I pushed the memory down, singing a few lines of one of my favorite songs under my breath. "We are, we are/ We are made from broken parts/ We are, we are/ We are broken from the start/ And our hearts, our hearts/ They are beating in the dark/ 'cause we are, we are/ We are built from broken parts…"

She was looking at me now. A little bit of that beautiful smile was breaking through. "Well, if your heart is broken, you can have mine."

We were slowing down now, falling behind the rest of the group. "You could take mine. Really, you already have." We were moving closer to each other. Some people think that the more you learn about someone, the less desirable they seem. But with every second that passed she seemed more beautiful.

Soon she was in my arms, and I in hers. I kissed her, and the world around us melted away. In an instant, all the pain, all the rage, all the sadness, disappeared. I could feel her light, and it filled me almost to bursting. Every inch of my body was warm and full of energy.

She pulled away. The evening sun shone on her, almost making her glow. "I love you," She said.

I held her closer and whispered in her ear, like it was the greatest secret in the entire world, "I love you too."


"You what?!" Pablo almost shouted. This was why I had decided to tell him when we were on our own working in the garden. "You just met this girl! And now you're telling me you're in love with her?"

"It's not like I can help it!" I told him. " I don't know, it's just… since Sharon… I've been so lonely. There's been this emptiness… and she make it all go away."

"And what about her, by the way? What about Sharon?" He looked at me skeptically.

I sighed. "I don't know… look, she's gone now anyway. And I just… I don't want to be alone anymore. I can't…" I looked up at him. His expression was a bit softer now.

"I know, bro. I just want you to be careful. Ok?" I nodded.

Eventually the sun started to sink below the horizon, and we decided to head over to the barn. Most of the others were already there. We stayed up and talked a bit, laying on our sleeping bags and watching the last shafts of light fade away. I talked to Annie about all the books we had both read, "The Fault in our Stars" and "Harry Potter" and all those. Pablo joined in the conversation, and we told Annie some of our anecdotes from the good old days. Soon most of the others were sleeping. I discreetly kissed Annie good night, and then we fell asleep, completely content.