Greetings, readers! I'm back!

Have no fear, this story has not been abandoned. I started college a bit ago and have been very busy with school and two jobs! Updates will likely still be slow, but they will be coming, so I hope that you all stay with me. Thanks for reading this far!

In addition, I will be going back and editing previous chapters for clarity, grammar, and quality, so if you've forgotten what happened now will be a great time to go back and read again. Hopefully my edits will be improvements.

Chapter 11

Left Behind

The night was cold, the air thin. The town next to the bridge was illuminated with dim, flickering lights, the only movement originating from a feminine figure sitting on a fire escape. Zoey.

The clang of metal echoed through the air- the sound of the underground museum door being thrown open. Four figures emerged from the door, all panting and soaked in sewage-water. The grimy liquid had given their clothes a dull brown-green tinge.

"Never. Again," Nick said, shaking his pointed finger in the air as he walked. "Blood comes out. Dirt comes out. Even zombie brains come out. But now these trousers are going to smell like SHIT forever. Do you know how much I paid for this suit?! Three-thousand dollars. Can you even count that high?" he asked Melia, who only rolled her eyes in response.

"Shut up, Nick," Rochelle quipped. The conman did as he was told, though he did fold his arms stubbornly. Rochelle was unfazed. She walked past him, towards the bridge, where Zoey was waiting.

"You made it!" Zoey exclaimed. Her eyes fell on Ellis for a brief moment, and she shot him a grin before turning away.

"Was it just me, or did she seem really surprised?" Melia muttered to Coach, who just scoffed and shrugged in response. Ellis was within earshot, but his eyes were glued to Zoey. She gestured to her right, below them.

"See that generator there? You'll have to fill it with gas- about eight canisters of it. Once you've done that, we can lower the bridge using the controls up here." She gestured to her left. "We haven't taken out much of the infected down there, so be careful. We've been listening to the special infected calls all night." As she spoke, two men emerged from a building behind her, each holding their own gun. One was a thin African-American man, the other a muscled and tattooed white man.

"Great," Rochelle grunted, and Zoey turned to face her.

"Don't worry, we'll cover you from up here," she reassured- but Rochelle was already walking away. There was a rickety metal lift that seemed to go down to the generator. She climbed into it and tapped her feet impatiently, waiting for the rest of the group to join her. They did, promptly, and Rochelle slammed her fist against the 'down' button. As the elevator groaned and began to move, the groaning of the infected could be heard in the near distance. Ellis shifted his weight eagerly from foot to foot, the descension of the lift all too slow.

Melia stepped up onto one of the metal rungs on the side of the lift and turned to the group. Her eyes shone, and her fingers twitched, as if there were ideas inside her that were begging to be released from her fingertips. "Let's split up," she suggested, her voice surprisingly firm. "Rochelle and Nick can go to the left side of this main road, and Ellis and I will go to right. Coach, you could provide support and cover whenever we find a gas can."

The rest of the group exchanged glances, but nodded. It sounded like a good enough plan. Melia seemed satisfied with that and hopped down from the railing. A few moments later, it hit the ground with an unsteady clank! Melia was the first to climb off, rushing off to the right. Ellis was quick to follow, and the sound of gunshots could be heard a few moments later, followed by the roars of dying infected.

"Who put ants in her pants?" Coach asked, to which Rochelle and Nick just shrugged.

The five survivors made their way around the area, and gas was surprisingly easy to find. They fell into a steady rhythm- shoot, grab canister, run. Shoot, grab canister, run. It felt no more difficult than their everyday treks. Over the next ten minutes, Nick found three cans, and Melia found one. "This is easier than I thought!" Nick exclaimed to Rochelle, louder than was necessary- bragging, it seemed.

Rochelle rolled her eyes. "Keep moving, Nick," she said, and fell silent as he handed her yet another canister. She ran over and passed that off to Coach, whose face was pinched into an irritated sneer.

"Better not fuckin' jinx us with that ego," he said. "Let it be easy, just this-"

And at that precise moment, there was the roar of a horde in the distance.

"Dammit, Nick!" Coach exclaimed. He rushed off with the canister of gas and quickly poured it into the generator, then looked up at Zoey. "That's five, can you lower it far enough for us to hop across?" he asked. Zoey's comrade- the african-american man, grimly shook his head.

"It won't go low enough with just five, eight is the minimum!" His eyes flickered away from Coach, and up, towards the oncoming horde. "Keep going!" he shouted. He raised her gun and let out a flurry of bullets, taking down a good ten zombies that were stumbling down the main road. That hardly seemed to make a dent in the overall horde, though, as the infected continued to stream in from the West. Heavy, booming footsteps accompanied the screams of the infected, and the ground rattled. A bloody pink mass came into view at the top of the street, chest heaving.

"TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK!" Coach shouted. And with an angry roar, the ugly thing beat its chest and charged straight for Coach, barreling over infected as it went. Coach's four comrades scrambled for cover, and Zoey began to empty the clip of her AK into the monster's chest. He reached into his pocket and threw some bile at the damn thing, but the bottle broke on a nearby zombie instead. The tank seemed to understand his intent, though, and ripped up a piece of the road. It let out an angry roar and hurled the chunk at Coach, as easily as if it were throwing a baseball.

A deep, "OH, SHIT!" echoed through the streets. Coach leaped to the right and rolled, groaning at the pain in his back as he stood back up. The chunk narrowly missed him, landing about three feet to his left and shattering into smaller pieces. The tank roared again, and charged. The sound of gunshots filled the air.

Coach turned and ran, and ran, and ran. The tank just kept closing the distance between them. Fifty feet. Thirty. Twenty...

"HEY UGLY!" Melia called out, from atop a building to the tank's left. A molotov was alight in her right hand- she hurled it with all her strength at the tank, and hit her target square in the shoulder. The tank's skin was set ablaze, and it let out a roar of anguish. It took a few more heavy steps before collapsing to the ground, squirming in the orange fire. The survivors collectively let out a whoop of victory- but there was still the horde.

Melia worked in tandem with Zoey's team of survivors to mow down the influx of zombies that was flooding the streets. They emptied clip after clip, and somehow, the horde never seemed any smaller. They did their best to cover the others from their high vantage points; Ellis, Rochelle, and Nick were still hunting for fuel. Nick's scavenging skills proved useful, and he continued to find gas canisters with shocking speed, but it was significantly harder to pass the gas canisters off through the sea of undead bodies. Nick struggled to find a clear spot in the horde to get to Coach as the other four survivors tried to mow down a path.

Their progress from then on was painfully slow- where were all these zombies even coming from? Had the entire east side of the river been left untouched, left to breed hordes upon hordes of the undead? It would seem so. It took another good 20 minutes just to get two more gas canisters to Coach and into the generator, and all the while, the survivors struggled. Nick was covered in a sheen of sweat and reeked terribly of body odor and sewage water, and was muttering under his breath about the stench of his white suit.

Nick had found the eighth and final gas canister when it happened- there was a sound of crashing metal, of a door being knocked off its hinges. Melia gasped- the infected had found their way to her spot on the roof and were flooding the only entrance. She turned her gun to them and fired, using the entirety of her last clip of ammo in a matter of seconds.

"I'm out!" she screamed. She threw down her weapon in disdain and turned away, searching for another exit. A window? She was lithe, perhaps she could climb down. No- there wasn't enough time for that-

Coach's voice boomed from below. "Jump!" he called. Melia could barely hear him over the roar of the infected and the sound of Zoey raining bullets down on the zombies behind her. She turned and looked down at him, just below her spot on the building. He had his arms out and stood there expectantly, three stories below her.

No, it was too high. She couldn't.

"Reloading!" Zoey hollered. The infected surged forward, towards Melia- Zoey's friends were focused solely on keeping Coach clear of the infected as he waited for Melia. She had to jump, or she would be consumed.

Melia looked to the infected. To Coach. The infected. To Coach.

She sent up a silent prayer and dropped from the edge of the building, down towards Coach's waiting arms.

"AGH!" their collective screams filled the air as the sound of Zoey shooting her gun began again. Coach caught her in his arms and she sailed into his chest and ample gut. His foot slid backwards as he tried to steady them, but something in his ankle...snapped. He let out a second cry of pain and fell backwards to the ground with Melia's momentum. His head knocked against the ground, and the world began to spin. Melia's head slammed into his chin, and they both grunted.

Melia was off of Coach and back on her feet in a second, but he was not so lucky. Melia offered a hand to him, and he grasped it. "Dizzy," he muttered as she pulled him to a sitting position. "Ah- my ankle- I ain't so sure I can stand..."

Nick, Rochelle, and Ellis ran past the pair, more infected trailing behind them. Zoey and her team mowed them down- it was easy, at this range.

"You guys alright?!" Rochelle called to them as she passed. Melia shook her head, eyes panicked. How would they get Coach to the car?

Nick ran up to the generator and began pouring the last canister in. He couldn't stop, not even for Coach, not now. Zoey saw him pour the thing in and slammed her hand down on a huge red button as soon as he finished, and the bridge began to lower.

"Why's it so fucking slow?" he complained, as the metal creaked.

The sound of more hordes echoed in the distance. "I'd be more worried about the noise. Come on! No time to lose!" She moved to support Coach under one arm while Ellis moved to get the other- but Coach batted them away.

"I can't. I can't make it to the otha' side of the bridge in time," he said. The bridge clanged as it hit home- it had lowered completely. "You have to leave me!"

Nick hesitated for only a moment before running off with a grim expression, but the rest of the group felt glued to the ground.

"No!" Rochelle insisted. A metal clanging sounded to her left. She looked over at a barricaded door that had been cleared and opened. Zoey stood there, holding the door open. "Come on! Bring him over!" she called.

"INCOMING!" her tattooed friend shouted from above.

Ellis and Rochelle moved quickly, with Coach hopping on one foot to move them faster. Zoey's friends and

Melia focused their efforts on keeping the horde away- but little by little, the infected were getting closer.

As soon as Coach was in, Zoey slammed the door shut. "Go!" she shouted. Ellis and Rochelle seemed to understand- this was their chance. They sprinted away towards the car. Melia looked at the door with scrutinizing eyes. Would that hold? Could she really leave them?

She had to...she did. Without thinking, her feet began carrying her back to the car at a full sprint. She was far faster than Rochelle and Ellis despite her exhaustion, and went flying past them into the passengers seat. Nick already had the car running and zoomed forward to meet Rochelle and Ellis, who hopped into the back seat.

"This is gonna be rough...hold on!" Nick said. He slammed his foot down on the accelerator, and his hand expertly shifted the gears as the car sped up. They sped forward, all the way down the bridge. There was a startling jolt as Nick hit an infected, then another, and another. He swerved his way through the clearest path, past the building Coach had been sealed into, and down the road.

After what seemed like an eternity, they were clear of the horde.