“Immune 2
Running from the Dead”
Dead Day-7
Back when the world made sense, I was Vanessa
Summers, Medical Assistant and aspiring writer. Stuck in a dead end job filing
paperwork with several unfinished novels with "great ideas" sitting
uder a bed to collect dust. But now the world has been turned on end and the
time for reinventing oneself is now. It has been a week since the initial
outbreak of the dead walking. In that time, I killed my boyfriend, well
ex-boyfriend, a few of my neighbors, a randon zombie at the gunless gun store,
and a naked woman walking with her guts hanging out. I don't really know what's
going on but I do know that if you're bitten, you turn. Depending on where the
bite is seems to have some significance. Gregg and my neighbor were bit on the
face and neck, they turned immediately. I can only assume being bit on your
extremities would take longer to turn you. I was bit on the forearm, but it's
been a week and I haven't turned into anything, except hungry. There was no
getting close to the Walmart, Target, or even a smaller corner store. Zombies inhabited
all those places. Anywhere there were a lot of people gathered had a mass
amount of zombies. I stirred clear of those places. I found that the zombies
were stronger than they looked and if they were to surround you, you were pretty
much walker food. I tried to stay in open places, where I had an avenue of
escape should the horde find me. This day was different, I was able to find
food in an abandoned house but to my surprise I also found a child. She called
out to me and I could see she was crying and afraid. For a split second, I
entertained the idea of leaving her behind. Not my proudest moment but this
world was dog eat dog now. How could I survive dragging a child along? Then
again, how could she survive alone?
Her name was Elizabeth
and she liked to be called Lizzy. She wore the school uniform of a catholic girl’s
school nearby. This was her home, or it used to be. She's 11 and a half and
walked home after the initial outbreak. It amazed me how she could make it this
far. She had come home to join her family, but the house was as it is now,
empty. I told her who I was and that I would help her to find her family. An
impossible task, I know, but I needed to placate her. Truthfully, I expected to
still turn any day now. The last thing I want to happen is to turn and feed on
this child. I needed to find someone to take her off my hands for mine and
Lizzy's sake. There was word that a safe place had been set up at the CDC in
the city. It was a risk going there, but what choice do I have?
Walking along
the road lined by trees to Atlanta, I learned a lot more about Lizzy. She's a
pretty child with pale skin and big blue eyes. She said she liked my honey skin
and brown eyes also. She especially liked my sword although I didn't let her
touch it. We spoke in hushed tones as I wasn't sure as to how the walkers
located their pray. Whether by sight, sound, or smell or maybe all of the
above. I spotted a white, or used to be white, camper parked on a cliff face
high above the winding road. I couldn't hear sounds of human life but I could
smell meat roasting on a camp fire. Now either a deer was set ablaze and
wandering the woods or someone was cooking. I chose to hope for the latter and
we made our way up the hiking trail.
To my
surprise, there was a camp there. There were people there. I don't know how
well we'll be received, strangers in a strange new world, but I hoped there was
still human decency. I needed to leave Lizzy with them, although she doesn't
know it. In the few days I traveled with her, she seen so much more than an 11
and a half year old should. She needed somewhere safe to sleep and have some
kind of a life, without me. A man walked up to me, my hand rested on the hilt
of my sword at my side just in case. But he had a kind face and he wore the
uniform, a bit tattered and torn, of a sherrif. He said his name was Rick and
asked if we would like something to eat. Lizzy's stomach grumbled at the smell
of the cooking meat and mine followed suit. I made that decision to leave Lizzy
here with Rick, Shane, Lori and the others. They looked like they will care
greatly for her, after I ate of course.
To be
Continued...
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