Well hello there my little survivors! To show my love for you this Valentine's Day, I give you this long awaited chapter!

The Survivor's Guide to Surviving the Infection

Chapter 12: L is for Lost

Two months, ? days, ? weeks after first Infection

Milky tears were running down from their respective, single eye. Being crammed into a tiny storeroom with Ryan and a dozen other infected was unenjoyable on its own. Covering Ryan's mouth to prevent him from coughing aloud was tiring, and being face first in his cloud of green smog was positively devastating. Toni felt sure his senses were all slowly dying off, and he'd be a weak, blind, and deaf thing in the end. It was jus as bad on Ryan's end, his chest heaving as he solely breathed through his nose, and Toni could hear the rumbles of trapped wheezes and wet coughs within.

He could hear the same from the other Infected in the room, small noises at the back of their throats. Other than that, they were deathly quiet, not even daring to make any other sounds. They were probably safe, to make noise at least. Leave the building they were in however? Perhaps not. They hadn't heard it in a while, nor felt the accompanying tremors. But that didn't mean it was still out there.

It was the being they all equally feared, Infected and non-Infected alike. The behemoth that shattered the earth with its every step, that could punch through the hardest of things, could send the heaviest of things flying…..It had many names among everyone with enough thought process, but no matter the name, the meaning meant the same. Everyone knew to run and hide when it was near, as it was an unstoppable force that only the best of onslaughts from a warm body's death-sticks could bring down, or if the mighty ones were to team up and bring it down. But since that never happened, here he was with Ryan and some others, hiding like rabbits.

He had no clue as to where his prey and his rival were. Ryan and the Divine had decides to split his rival and him up, less they explode at each other again for the upteenth time since they had arrived in this small town (as the Divine prey had said once). And it had worked, Toni felt considerably more relaxed with just the smoker around. But it was during this separation from the others that they heard it, the rampaging behemoth. Without a second thought, they smashed their way through the nearest door of a building and scrambled into the farthest room possible from the door. Some lesser cousins had followed, and here they all sat, waiting, and listening.

Despite their relative safety, Toni still took the extra precaution of covering the smoker's mouth, less his breathing problems escalate out of fear and stress. Which made this even worse for the both of them. Toni was gonna die of noxious gas and Ryan was gonna suffocate and they were surrounded by mindless idiots. Fantastic.

At some point, it finally became too much, and Ryan pushed him away to hack and gag and wheeze himself into oblivion. He actually toppled over to his side to expel the phlegm from his insides. Toni just rolled away from him to breathe in cleaner air and wipe away the milky mucus running from his eye. Well, perhaps they could come out of hiding now and search for the rest of their pack, surely the big one was far, far away by now and wasn't anywhere-

THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP

Part of the ceiling came showering down on a lesser cousin. Ryan's coughs ceased, and the lessers huddled closer together. As his prey would often say in situations like these;

"Fuck the fuckers" Toni muttered, and pulled his hood low over his face. The whole building began to tremble, and all the Infected in the room seemed to freeze, holding their breaths as the behemoth trampled around outside. The earth shattering pounds were accompanied by grunts and growls that resonated in their bones. They waited, and waited, and waited. The behemoth moved along when it could not find something relatively living to smash its meaty fists into, and the trampling eventually faded away. They were safe, for now.

But no telling when they could leave and find the others. Suddenly thinking of Him made Toni growl deep in his throat. Him, alone somewhere with the Prey.

x-X-X-x

So Tanks were stupid. Not to say that the Tank itself was dumb as a log, but its mere existence was stupid. It just wasn't fair. Who's bright idea was it, to call it Tank? Who's bright fucking idea was it, to have a disease that mutated someone so badly they turned into a wall of moving muscle that destroyed anything it could get its hands on? It was just stupid. Super stupid.

It was the next town over from the one they were in previous that they came along to just from following the highway. The first house they stumbled upon had a saferoom. Not a problem. The saferoom walls were covered in messages. Pretty normal. Half of them talked about the "Tank". Okay, that was weird. Divine kept hoping they were all talking about a military tank. Like some asshole was sitting in a tank and shooting at people. Something like that. And all the new looking potholes in the streets and buildings seemed to imply that.

But there was another saferoom on the western side of the town, and they just so had to go for it. Splitting up didn't seem like a bad idea at the time. It was amazing they came this far without the two Hunters positively exploding at each other and tearing each apart limb from limb. They all had the clear goal in mind to reach the same place, so they split up. Divine with Zachary, and Ryan with Toni. And things were going pretty well..

Then the Tank happened.

And everyone flipped. Other Infected that Divine didn't even know where around were all suddenly bolting- but not for her, but into any place they could to just not be seen. And clearly remembering the last time something like this happened, Divine and Zachary wasted no time in breaking into the nearest building and throwing themselves into the darkest corner they could. Divine wasn't even going to bother with defense, not when it was just her gun and Zachary. Maybe with the others here, they could have stood a chance. But they were all dumbly split up, so no such luck with that.

And now they were trapped, and if they dared try to leave they were most likely going to get crushed by a moving wall of death. The building was literally shaking as the Tank ran past. They could hear its grunts and shouts though the walls, and goddamn it sounded like it was practically on top of them. So they sat, in the dark, huddled in a corner, and waited for the Tank to move on to some other part of the town.

Hopefully Ryan and Toni were safe somewhere, whether it be in the actual saferoom they were going to meet up at, or inside another building. Just so long as they were okay at the end of all this and she could see them again. A loud wail of a Common sounded, and a thundering roar was heard from the Tank. Divine could only assume a poor Infected hadn't ran in time and was unfortunately the receiver of the Tank's never ending rage.

It felt like forever, but the Tank eventually moved on to go be mad at something in a different part of town. Divine finally felt safe enough, to at least move again. She carefully untangled herself from Zachary to slowly creep towards the way they came in. Maybe they could make a break for it while it was elsewhere, and if they just kept moving-

She let out a small yelp when her ankle was suddenly caught, and she was dragged backwards. Zachary immediately shushed her and pulled her back into his arms.

"Dude, what the hell?" Divine hissed at him.

"Not safe. No go" Zachary said simply.

"But it's gone! If we leave now, we can totally avoid it and-" but she's cut off when the Hunter thunks his forehead against hers.

"Noooo" he whispers. "Knows how to quiet too"

What didn't? It seemed like everything knew how to shut up long enough to lull anyone into a false sense of security. Divine inhaled deeply (terrible idea with Zach's terrible zombie breath in her face), and slowly exhaled out of the deep frustration she was feeling.

"How do we leave then?" she asked quietly. "We have to find the others too, ya know"

"We will" Zachary assured her, and after a moment, leaned in more to lick at her face. "We find, I promise"

And he shifted her so she was against his chest, her head tucked under his chin. "Right now? I 'tect you. Keep you safe"

Divine didn't feel any more reassured but she'd take it nonetheless. He got points for trying.

The alternative title for this chapter is; The Time Zachary and Divine almost did The Thing

Originally they were gonna do, a THING, but….It just ended up not working out in the end.

So you got this instead.

LOVE YOU ALL 3