4 Chapters

65.
Andrew

Andrew kicked down the door to the cabin and stormed in, followed closely by his group, Annaliese and Monica. The two women slammed the door shut once everyone was inside, and then sat down to keep it closed. Andrew aimed the gun into the cabin, anticipating the worst, but was surprised to find there were no zombies in the cabin. Brandon was standing at the back of the cabin, arms outstretched and holding his group back against the wall while Ivan and Nick stood in the middle of the cabin, both aiming their weapons at each other.

“Andrew!” Ivan exclaimed, lowering his crossbow and running over to him. Brandon and Nick just had stunned faces on as Andrew looked around the room, equally stunned by what he had just walked in on.

“What the hell is going on here?” Andrew asked aloud.

“Nick was gonna kill me for saying he was wrong for throwing you in the barn.” Ivan quickly explained. He turned back and gave Nick a devilish, dirty grin.

“Oh fuck off, brat!” Nick shouted, lowering his gun to his waist, “Sorry for trying to protect you from a dangerous murderer!”

“I’m not dangerous.” Andrew said, looking at Nick. The guy he considered his best friend had turned against him so quickly, it stung Andrew hard knowing that. “I did what I had to do.”

“No you didn’t.” A voice piped up behind Andrew. He slowly and quietly turned around to find James looking at him with some kind of betrayal and hatred in his eyes. Andrew looked deep into the young boys glassy eyes, and he could truly tell that James wasn’t just angry with Andrew, he was scared of him. “You killed those people without even talking to anybody about it. You just shot them. All of them. Even the one’s who didn’t so anything wrong.”

“At least someone in the room has a brain.” Nick remarked, essentially to himself. Andrew continued to look at James, paying his former friend no mind.

“They would have hurt you. They’d already hurt Brad… they killed him.”

“So you killed them all? Why, Andrew? Why’d you have to do that?” James said, Andrew could see tears forming in his eyes.

“It was what had to be done.” Andrew tried to say firmly, though there was a slight quiver in his voice.

“Did you even regret it?” Nick piped up again. This time, Andrew turned to look at him. “Feel any sort of shock? Disgust?”

“No.” He said, firmly. “I didn’t.”

“Oh so you’re a sociopath. Awesome.” He said sarcastically, turning around and punching a nearby wall in frustration. In the brief moment that Nick had turned around, Andrew drew his gun, sprinted forward, and pinned Nick against the wall.

“For the past three months I have watched my friends get killed and turned into walking corpses. I’ve then had to re-kill them. I killed your camper, while he was essentially still alive, out of mercy. I’ve been confronted by an insane man with some kind of strange god complex for the past month. I killed a sick bastard who was using the apocalypse to live out his most inhuman fantasies. A man I’d looked up too for a majority of my life was killed at a time when I could do nothing about it. And then I killed the four people who deserved it for what they did to that man. And now I’m here, trying to save the kids and friends I’ve worked so hard and done so much to protect while I get berated for doing exactly that. You want to kill me? You want to kill me after all that I’ve done right? I know you were discussing it, I know it’s what you want to do. And what’s the point if all the people I work to protect are afraid of me and think I’m sociopathic” Andrew ranted right into Nick’s ear. He threw the gun away as he finished and backed off. Holding his hands above his head, Andrew kneeled down and started speaking again. “Do it then. Off me. Off the crazy son of a bitch that used to be your best friend.”

“Andrew, no!” Annaliese shouted, trying to rush forward, but Monica grabbed her and held her back. Not just for the sake of her not getting hurt, but for the sake of keeping more than one person up against the door.

Nick stepped forward, gun still in his hand. The room was dead quiet, with no one making a sound.

“Do. It.” Andrew muttered through gritted teeth.

Nick lifted the gun and aimed it at Andrew’s head. Andrew didn’t blink the whole time as Nick aimed, and then lowered the gun. “No, because I’m not like you.”

“You’re right.” Brandon said, finally speaking up after the whole ordeal, “Based on what you said to Ivan, your worse.” Nick turned around to yell something at Brandon, when everyone in the cabin heard a crashing noise, and then the screams of Annaliese and Monica.

The front door had finally broken apart from the undeads attempts to smash through it. The two women were now buried under a mountain of wood and undead. The kids standing near the door yelped and ran further into the cabin, standing with Brandon and his group. Andrew quickly grabbed his gun, and turned back towards the door, followed by Ivan and Nick. The three unloaded on the undead directly on top of the girls, before reaching down and helping pull them out of the rubble. Monica ran farther into the cabin while Aanaliese stood up and drew her own pistol, aiming it out the door. She and Andrew both looked out the door to see a sea of undead working their way towards the cabin. There were much too many for the survivors to keep holding out in the cabin and fight.

“Who else do we know is alive!” Andrew shouted, turning back to the cabins interior.

“Uh, Delvyn is guarding Nick’s group and I’m pretty sure Johanna and her group are there.” Brandon responded.

“That’s everyone?” Andrew asked, shocked. Brandon shrugged, but Monica shook her head weakly as if to say yes. “It will have too do.” Andrew continued. He then directed everyone out one of the cabins back windows, intending to save the rest of the camp.

66.
Nick

“Just do it.” He thought to himself. “Just shoot him in the back now.” Nick glanced forward at Andrew as he lead the group towards Nick’s own cabin. “You’d have to be quick, probably cap Brandon too and then hold Ivan at gunpoint til he calms down, but you could easily do it.” Nick’s hand twitched over the holster of his gun as his mind ran wild and considered all his options. “It’d be too easy. Just do it. Get it over with. Everyone will think you’re a hero. He’s dangerous anyway.” Andrew led the group onto a bush and signaled for everyone to kneel down and stay quiet. Nick did as he was told and wiped sweat off his forehead. “He’ll kill you in your sleep if you don’t. He thinks you’re a threat.” Nick slowly drew the gun from it’s holster, taking his time so as not to alert anybody. “Kill him.”

Nick began to raise his gun, but as he did a hand reached out and made him lower it. “Didn’t you just hear Andrew?” Monica’s voice rang in his ear. Nick snapped out of it, and looked around. Everyone was staring at him, confused.

“No… I… I wasn’t paying attention.” He said.

“We’ve just gotta keep it down, for now. There’s a huge horde outside your cabin. But they don’t seem to know anyone’s inside, and they don’t seem to know we’re over here.” Andrew explained.

“Well, what do you think we should do?” Nick asked.

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Oh, well thanks then fucking genius.”

“Would you chill out for two fucking seconds, we can argue later, right now we’re trying to save your groups lives.” Andrew harshly snapped back at Nick.

“They don’t need a murderer to save their lives.”

“I’m not a murderer now, but I may be in a couple seconds.”

“Andrew, stop.” Anna said, putting her hand on Andrew’s shoulder and slightly tugging him back. He glared at Nick, but relented and went back to surveying the scene.

“So, do you think we can just-“ Monica began to say when a gunshot rang out from the Cabin. The group looked up to see a young boy looking out a window, appearing to hold a gun. He fired several more times as screams emanated from the Cabin. The Undead became restless and started making their way towards the building.

Logan. It was Logan firing at the crowd. Nick could see him in the window. He was always a pretty restless kid, Nick thought to himself, but he never expected him to do something so stupid. “Logan!” He shouted impulsively, “Stop what you’re doing!” The undead became more restless as Nick screamed, with some now making their way towards the survivors hiding in the bushes.

“Oh god damn…Come on!” Andrew shouted, darting out of the bush. The rest of the group, guns blazing, followed suit too face the horde. “Brandon, we’re going for the backdoor, we’re getting them out. Everyone else cut your way through the horde, get to the front door. If those walkers get through the door, we’ll lose everyone inside.”

“I’m coming with you.” Nick demanded.

“No. They need your help getting through the horde. We don’t need help busting down an old wooden door.”

“I don’t take orders from you!”

“You do for now!”

“No!”

“Do you want your group to die? Is that what you want? You fucking tell me if that’s what you want!” Andrew shouted at Nick over the hail of gunfire. “Because if that’s what you want I’ll fucking grant it. I’ll walk away and take my people, the ones that will follow, with me. You’ve fucked my life up too much these past two days. I’ll leave you here to die with your group if that’s what you want.” Nick clenched his fists and felt blood rushing through his body. He couldn’t control himself, and could feel his body shaking with the desire to just sock Andrew in the face, too kill him. He was done with this kid, absolutely done. But as Andrew screamed at him, Nick saw a shape behind him, hobbling forward, arms outstretched, teeth t the ready. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for this camp, not for myself!” Andrew shouted, but Nick was no longer paying attention. Brandon was already behind the cabin, everyone else was facing the horde trying to survive, Andrew had his back turned, but Nick saw it. A Walker. The Walker that was shambling towards Andrew. The one that was going to get him. It inched closer and closer, every step feeling like it took an hour. Nick was completely frozen. He wanted Andrew to die, but a small part of him, the part of him that used to be Andrew’s friend, wanted to jump in and prevent it. Nick couldn’t do anything, he could only watch as the Walker inched close and closer and closer… and closer

and closer

and closer

BANG

67.
Andrew

“Regulator! Move!” Andrew heard a recognizably1 raspy voice shout from behind him. He was still slightly recuperating from getting splattered in a ton of blood from behind. He turned around to see The Bedlam and Gabi standing together on top a small hill that just barely rose above the roof of the cabin. The Bedlam held a rifle that seems almost familiar, it seemed a lot like the rifle Kyle used to use. “Regulator! Move, now!” The Bedlam shouted again. Finally snapping to his senses, Andrew turned and ran away from Nick, around the cabin and too the back door. There he found Brandon, smashing away on the back door like it was nobody’s business.

“You know, when they renovated these cabins, you think they would have kept the backdoors in place instead of trying to board them up.” Brandon said, through gasps of breath.

“Yeah, but where would the logic in that be.” Andrew said, approaching the door. He picked up a rock off the ground and began banging on the door as hard as he could, hoping to break through the renovated, but thin, wall that had been put up behind it.

“Why even leave the door and stair case here if you’re just gonna board it up?” Brandon asked.

“I dunno man, the camp always cut corners on a lot of things. Just keep hitting it, we need to get through.”

“And can we be of any assistance.” The two heard behind them, they turned to see the Bedlam and Gabi approaching them rather calmly, given the circumstances. Andrew rushed forward and hugged Gabi, relieved to see her alive and well.

“Are you okay?” Andrew said, hugging her as she hugged back.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I promise.” Gabi said, a hint of joy in her voice.

“Surprising enough, the Counsel isn’t as weak as you think, Regulator.” The Bedlam commented.

“Oh, he gave you a dumb name too?” Andrew asked Gabi. She shook her head yes, slightly rolling her eyes, “Look, I appreciate your help, but can ya drop the crazy psycho shit for like ten minutes while we try and sort this situation out?”

The Bedlam outstretched his arms and grinned, “How may I be of service?”

Andrew pointed to the cabin’s boarded up backdoor, “We need to get through there before the undead get through the other side.”
“Hmmm, it would seem simple enough. If you hadn’t wasted so much time talking to us.”

“What?” Andrew asked, confused. And thats when he heard the all too familiar sound of woods splintering, young children screaming, and gunshots firing so erratically that there was no way they were hitting their mark.

68.
Logan
He didn’t feel anything. He could see the tear in his sweatshirt, the blood all over him, the bite mark in his arm. He could hear the screams of his friends around him, the gunshots outside, the growls of the monsters clambering their way into the building. He could smell the death all around him. He could taste the vomit residue in his mouth. He could even feel the shooting pain from his arm as more and more blood leaked out of it and down to the ground. He felt a second zombie crash into him and knock him to the floor. And he felt as the zombie dug into his stomach, blood spewing out in every which way direction as the undead monster pulled out his meat, flesh, and insides and feasted on them.

But at the same time he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel any of it, nothing at all. Because he was overwhelmed with only one feeling.

Relief.

It was over. He was leaving. He was going to actually safety. Finally. The twelve year old boy was finally waking up from the nightmare in a happier place.