Miranda, Jayson and Ace were making their way through the abandoned alley, stepping over dead corpses that laid on the hard pavement.
"Oh God that stinks..." the blonde commented. The smell of the garbage that had beenn sitting there for days mixed with the smell of quickly rotting corpses made her gag, so she covered her nose with her shirt. Unfortunately for her, the attempt to mask the rancid smell was hopeless. She looked up, trying her best not to look at the bodies at her feet.
"Get down!" Ace hissed, pulling the other girl behind a nearby dumpster. Jayson quickly followed, crouching down next to the two girls.
"What?" Miranda asked, rubbing where her head had hit the wall.
"Be quiet." she scolded, before peeking her head out to look ahead. "There's... There's something over there."
"Lemme see." she peeked her head around the dumpster, and raised an eyebrow. About 6 feet ahead of them, was a creature. Its skin was so pale, that it looked a sickly grey color. It was wearing a ripped up navy blue sweater, and black pants. Blood stained his skin and clothing.
"Is it... one of them...?" Jasyon asked. It didn't look an infected. At least, not like the ones walking around town.
"I don't think so. It's... something else." the black haired girl answered, sneaking another peek.
They watched it crawl around on all fours, sniffing the area. It seemed to have caught the scent of something it liked, because it started to crawl toward the alleyway's exit.
But suddenly, Miranda's cell phone went off. The loud ringing noise must have alerted the creature, because it whipped around to look in their direction. Letting out a low growl, it stalked toward the dumpster where they had been hiding.
"Shut it off!" Ace said in a frantic whisper, gripping her baseball bat tightly. Suddenly, she was knocked to the ground by the creature. It snarled, and she could see the flesh embedded between its teeth as it hovered over her. She had a look of disgust on her face when it's blood-mixed saliva dripped down onto her face.
It then started slashing her with it's claw-like hands. She screamed, feeling it break through her skin. "Oh shit." Jayson cursed, backing away slowly. He wanted to jump in and help, but he didn't have a weapon.
Miranda picked up Ace's bat, which was convienently laying right next to her, and struck the creature's head with it. The creature hit the ground and she looked at the thing, silently hoping it wouldn't get up again. She grabbed Ace's hand and helped her up, noticing that the wound was bleeding pretty badly.
"Put pressure on it. We'll treat it when we get to the apartment." She reassured her injured friend, who nodded as she gritted her teeth.
"Let's go." They started to make their way to the alley way's exit, but a horde of infected was blocking their path.
"Run!" Ace told the blonde, trying her best to run without causing the fresh wound to bleed any more than it already was. She hissed at the pain that shot through her body like electricity, but pushed herself to keep going.
~xxx~
Ace threw the front door open, Miranda rushing in after. They'd managed to outrun the infected, losing then some time back. Ace limped over to the couch, and carefully laid herself down.
Miranda went into the bathroom and dug out the First Aid kit. They kept it in there, but never had a reason to use it. After all, it wasn't every day that corpses came alive and started attacking people.
"Here you go." she said, handing her the kit. "You need some help?" she asked.
"No, I've got it. Thanks." she answered, and began cleaning the wound.
Just then, Miranda's cell phone went off. She pulled it out of her pocket and checked the caller ID. A relieved sigh escaped her lips when she saw the name, clicking a button and bringing it up to her ear. "Hey, Bradley!" she exclaimed, surprised to hear from him.
"Miranda, are you alright?" he asked, sounding worried.
"Yeah, i'm fine."
"I'm so glad to hear that. I was worried something had happened."
"You mean besides the street being crowded by freaking zombies?"
"Look, i'm taking Mom, Dad and Kate to Liberty Mall."
"Liberty mall?"
"CEDA has an evacuation center at Liberty Mall. You need to meet us there."
"Okay, I-" the call ended. 'he must have left the service area.' she reassured herself. She hung up the phone, and slowly slipped it back into her pocket.
"Who was that?" Jayson asked, and Miranda ran a finger through her hair.
"It was my brother, Bradley."
"What did he say?" Ace asked, standing up. Her wound was patched up and ready to go
"CEDA is evacuating people at Liberty Mall. He's gonna meet us there." She said.
"Should we get some supplies together?" Jayson asked, and the blonde nodded in reply.
"Hold on," she disappeared into her bedroom and came out a few minutes later with a large black backpack. She tossed it at him and told him to gather all the food they could take with them from the kitchen. He did so without question, going to the kitchen and emptying all the canned and packaged foods into the bag.
While he did that, the blonde made her way to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. There were a few bottles of painkillers and bandaids, but that was pretty much it. There wasn't much, but CEDA should have enough to get them by once they get to the mall. Joining everyone back into the living room, she gave Jayson all but one bottle to pack.
"Here, you're probably gonna need these." Miranda said, tossing the painkillers to her dark-haired friend. Ace nodded her thanks and once she finished packing, opened the bottle and swallowed a few pills.
"Everything's packed and ready to go." Jayson told them, the backpack hanging on his shoulders. Once Ace finished bandaging herself up, the three survivors headed out and made their way to Ace's green stationwagon. It wasn't exactly stylish, but it would be enough to get them to the mall.
The brunette put the key into the ignition and turned it, but they had a problem. The engined reved up, but cut off before it had the chance to start. "Are you serious? We just got it fixed!" Miranda complained, furrowing her brows in irritation.
Ace tried to start the vehicle over and over again, but still got the same result. "This isn't gonna work." she said with a sigh, taking the keys out of the ignition and putting them back in her pocket.
"So, what do we do?" Jayson asked from the back seat, taking his seatbelt off.
"We're gonna have to walk." Ace replied, unbuckling her own seatbelt and climbing out of the car.
"Walk? But those things are all over!" he argued, putting on the backpack of supplies. "We don't know how much worse it'll get."
"That's exactly why we can't waste any time. We need to get there, and we can't waste time trying to fix this car. You can come with us, or you can take your chances alone. It's up to you." she crossed her arms and he just sighed.
"Fine. You're leading here." he told her, and she wasted no time. She led him and Miranda down the street and out of the empty apartment complex. She was surprised that there weren't any undead wandering around, especially considering how many neighbors they had.
However, they didn;t have any time to waste. It was going to be dark in a few hours, and the mall was all the way across town. It didn't seem likely that they'd make it in time, but they were going to try their hardest to do it.