Zoey's father had always told her that she was an apt observer. She knew that she certainly had a tendency to notice small details others did not. Her father wanted her to use this skill in the law-enforcement field. Before the apocalypse, Zoey had mostly used it to find hidden Easter eggs in video games.
Now, as she trudged across over the failed barricade into Riverside, she felt as though her senses had been on a constant high for the past two weeks. She was usually the first to hear the creak of a floorboard or the distant rumble that announced the imminent arrival of a horde or a Tank.
It was eerily quiet as she helped Bill drop down from the ledge of the old movie theater they'd been skirting along. A ferocious battle ended not two minutes ago; a battle they had started by knocking down the barricade and apparently alerting half the Infected population of the town.
Her senses, still on their state of heightened awareness, searched for something to concentrate on in the silence. Everything sounded unnatural: where was the roar of Infected? Where was the sobbing of a Witch or the pop-pop-pop of their firearms?
With nothing else to go on, her mind began to concentrate on her three companions' breaths as they traversed across a street strewn with abandoned cars. It was the only sound to fill the silence.
Bill was a wheezer: his breath came in sharp, little whistles. She knew his knee must be bothering him again, but the stubborn veteran would never admit it. She considered offering him her pain pills but decided against it when she realized he wouldn't take them unless he was bleeding out.
Francis huffed as he walked: his breathing gruff and low just like his voice. He sounded a little like her father did when he came back from his early evening jogs, only with heavier breaths. She was reminded of home for a few seconds and was unsure whether to laugh or weep.
Louis, who brought up the rear of the group, seemed the most innocuous of the three men. His breathing, though quicker and sharper with their brisk pace, did not cut so deeply into the silence as Bill's wheezing and Francis's huffing. His was the most calming, as was his very presence.
She found that, like most things about Louis, she liked his the best.