How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

Chapter Seven – Heal

A/N- Shout-out to my best friend Kia for proofreading and generally being awesome :3 WHEN LAST WE LEFT OUR HEROS THEY WERE TOTALLY SCREWED. In today's episode, they're still screwed. Sorry this chapter's kinda slow, the action will pick up again in chapter eight!

"Back door! Check it!" Aaron ordered, and they ran over to the rear of the shop, searching for a back exit through or storeroom or some other way to get out.

"There are zombies blocking it!" Annabelle cried, her voice cracking. Elise looked around at her companions, fear evident on her face.

"What do we do? There's no way out." She said. No response. There were too many zombies, and the humans would be easily overcome by the sheer numbers of corpses.

"We can't fight, there's no way we'd make it out alive." Josh ran a hand through his hair. The panic was setting in.

"We'll have to run, try and get out quickly. There may be a lot of them, but they're all in a bunch around the door. If we can push through them, then we'll be able to get away. The zombies are too slow to catch up with us, and if we run fast enough we could lose them." Will said. It was a long shot, but it was something.

"Weapons at the ready, everyone." Evanz's voice was firm. They obeyed.

Reaching the door, they pulled away the barricade until only a single shelf was blocking the door.

"Ready? As soon as we open the door, run as fast as you can." Aaron's statement was met with a chorus of nods. With a final shove, the shelf moved away and Will threw the door open. The zombies began to push in. From the middle of the group, Annabelle used the broom to shove them back far enough to make a gap large enough for the survivors to get out. Evanz took a hold on it as well, and helped Annabelle ram the brush into the oncoming masses.

"RUN!" screamed Josh, and they did.

Shoving the zombies out of their way with the weapons at hand, the group shoved their way through, making sure to keep the zombie's mouths away from any bare skin. After a moment, they managed to burst through the back of the crowd. There was no time to pause, however, as the zombie horde turned around and reached for them.

"Quick! Back to the house!" Elise cried, bolting off in the direction of their base. The others followed, the wind whipping against their faces and pushing against them, almost as if it was trying to keep them in danger. At some point whilst they had been in the shop, the sky had grown dark and rain had begun to fall. It came thick and fast now, stinging their skin and blurring their vision.

Annabelle tripped and stumbled to her knees. Elise turned back and took her hand, pulling her to her feet.

"Come on, Bells! Come on!" Elise dragged her along, their hands tightly clasped together.

Josh turned, saw that the girls had fallen behind and reached for Elise's other hand, and pulled them closer. "We're almost there! Keep going!"

Will, Aaron, and Evanz rounded the corner towards the house, glad that the street was empty of zombies. The others managed to catch up, their pursuers following behind. As the six of them reached the red brick wall that signified their home, the horde were rounding the corner.

Without pausing, Will and Aaron immediately bent down to give a step for the others. Elise paused on the top to help the pair up the wall. She pulled Aaron over, but just as Will was mid-climb, the zombies reached the wall. One grabbed his ankle and tugged him back down. He cried out, and Elise tightened her grip, pulling hard.

Will kicked hard, breaking free of the zombie's grip and scampering up the wall, helped by Elise. The two dropped down on the other side, hurrying into the house along with the others.

They stood together in the living room, breathing hard. After a few moment's pause to catch their breath, Elise straightened.

"We need to stop almost getting killed. I move that we stay inside the house for as long as possible." She said.

"I second that motion." Josh stated, cleaning the rain off his glasses.

"Problem is, the zombies now know that we're in here. We're trapped." Evanz said, rubbing his slightly scruffy chin.

Annabelle sat down on the sofa, wincing in pain as she did so.

"Bells? What's wrong?" Aaron asked, frowning.

"I think I twisted my ankle." She said. The girl carefully lifted the trouser leg of her dungarees to reveal that her ankle was slightly swollen and already turning purple with bruises.

"I'm gonna go look for something to strap your ankle up with, ok Bells? Don't worry." Will gave her a smile then headed upstairs to the bathroom, looking through the cupboards.

Josh pulled the back pillow off the sofa and placed it next to Annabelle. "You need to keep it elevated. Just rest your foot on here, alright?"

Elise headed into the kitchen and tipped a little water from a bottle from the supermarket onto a piece of kitchen roll and returned to the living room, placing it on her sister's ankle to cool it down. "Keep this pressed to it. Don't move it too much for the next 48 hours."

Will soon returned to the main room with a roll of bandage. "We picked a good house to stay in. They're fully stocked. But you might want to go upstairs and look out the window. Things are not good."

As Evanz took the bandage and began to strap up Annabelle's ankle, the others walked up the stairs and into the bedroom they used for keeping watch during the night. The sight that greeted them was not a welcome one.

"Shit." Aaron breathed. No one else spoke.

The house was completely surrounded by zombies. Around the front, by the door, by the windows, by the back wall.

"We're totally fucked." Josh said, unable to drag his eyes away from the mass of rotting flesh below them.

"We're going to have to try and get out, find somewhere else to stay without alerting the zombies that we've gone." Will declared.

"You know we can't go anywhere for at least a few days. Bells can barely stand, let alone run from a horde of flesh-hungry monsters!" Elise said angrily, and Will held up his hands in a placating gesture.

"No, I know. I'm saying as soon as she's able to go, we need to get out." He calmly told her, and Elise nodded.

"I know. I know, I'm sorry, it's just…" She put her hand on her forehead.

"I get it. You're worried about Bells. But you don't need to, ok? We'll look after her." Aaron put a hand on Elise's shoulder and she took a deep breath.

"Ok. Ok, yeah. Thanks." The corner of her mouth twitched up in a smile. At that moment, Evanz came up the stairs and entered the room.

"I've done it as well as I can. I've only ever done basic first aid, but at least it's bandaged up." He commented. "She'll be fine."

"So once Bells's ankle is all healed up, we'll head out. But where to?" Aaron asked.

Josh pointed out the window. "Well, there's the house next door. If we can find a way to get out of our window and across that gap to theirs, we can run out of that house and get away before the zombies even know what's hit them."

"Ok, on the surface that sounds like a good plan, but how are we supposed to get over there and into the house without the zombies noticing?" Evanz asked sceptically.

"Hey, I'm the ideas man, not the logistics man!" Josh said, putting his hands up in a defensive position.

"You won't be any type of man in a minute." Aaron muttered.

"Too far, man." Josh replied, and Elise laughed.

"Come on, let's head back downstairs." Will said. "Standing around here staring glumly at our imminent doom won't make it go away."

For the rest of the afternoon, they sat in the living room planning out their escape from the house. As night fell across the city, Elise went into the kitchen to make dinner and came back with plates of ham salad.

"You may have noticed by now that I can't cook." She smiled, and handed out the food.

"Tastes good enough to me." Annabelle laughed.

In the end, they were all satisfied with the plan. Once Annabelle was able to move again, they would climb over the fence on the other side of the garden into next door's yard, then sneak out through the house into the street and make a run for it, lose the crowd of zombies and break into the supermarket a little ways away.

"I'll take the watch tonight." Elise stood, stretched her arms over her head and ran a hand through her hair. "I'll see you guys in the morning." She bent down and gave her sister a quick kiss on her forehead.

"Siiiiiiis!" Annabelle whined in embarrassment, but Elise just smiled.

As she walked upstairs, they all bedded down for the night, resting their heads on their arms. It had been an exhausting day, and so soon they were all fast asleep.


After a few hours of sleep, Josh woke up, breathing hard. As he regained consciousness, the nightmare slipped further away until he couldn't remember anything except how terrified he had been. He rubbed his eyes and picked up his glasses, sliding them onto his face. A soft sniffling sound caught his attention. Scanning the room, he saw that the others were still sleeping.

Josh quietly walked up the stairs, and entered the bedroom. "Elise?" he whispered, and the sniffling sound stopped abruptly.

"Oh. Hi Josh." The voice came from the window, and he saw Elise brushing tears off her cheeks.

"What's wrong?" He asked, frowning.

"I- I promised Annabelle I'd keep her safe. I promised her she wouldn't get hurt. And I let her down." She murmured, and the tears started to drip down her cheeks again.

"No, you didn't. She's alive, isn't she? And you brought her back. You've kept her safe. It's amazing how much you care for her." Josh felt his heart sink as he thought about his own little brother, wondering if he was ok. If their parents were still alive.

"I don't know how much longer I can take this, Josh." Her voice brought him back to the present.

"Hey, look at me." He held the tops of her arms and looked into her eyes. "We're all in this together, ok? We're gonna look out for each other, then we'll get to a safe place and make it through this."

"I thought you were going to start singing High School Musical for a moment there." Elise smiled.

"It was tempting."

She smiled again, and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. "Thank you." She whispered.

Then the door burst open and Evanz staggered in, eyes wide. The two sprang apart, turning to face Evanz with looks of confusion.

"We have to get out. NOW!"