I was slowly losing my mind on the long, long highway. It took me two days to make it with minimal stopping, and the silence was deafening. I felt like my fingers were frozen by the end of day two. I had faced zombie hordes, a few stray deer that were out for my eyes, and the endless thoughts of my mind. When I reached the last few miles that had the high, un-railed roads that had a few hundred foot drop off on the side, I felt sick to my stomach. It made my knees feel weak if I got too close, and anytime I lost the grip of my shoes on the snow, I could feel myself wanting to vomit. If my feet slightly slipped back, I'd curl up into a ball until I was sure I was done slipping. Even if my left shoulder hugged the stone wall, it wasn't enough. I wasn’t afraid of heights, but this height was something different. It terrified me. On the third day, I hadn’t even reached the fourth off-ramp. Once I did, it was the morning of the fourth day. I had walked up the ramp, and immediately to my right was a small, two-story home with a porch. To the left was a bridge going over the highway, and on the other side was a neighborhood. It made me uneasy to be close to a place like that, and for good reason. I could see a couple of masses moving around between the houses. They were easy to spot in the snow, which made me appreciate it a little more, but they could probably spot me, too. I wasn’t sure how good a blackened's eyesight would be from afar, but I did know they had good hearing. Dalton's gunshot had given our position away at that gas station. I watched them with ease for a few minutes. One had stopped on the outside of a house’s wall and looked in my direction. I was cold, tired, and it honestly scared me to be alone in a place like this. The thought of it coming towards me shot my nerves. After fighting for my life on this long highway, I thought I would be less afraid. I was wrong. I ran inside, carefully closing the door behind me to make sure I didn’t make too much noise, and I ran upstairs. To the right was a bathroom, and to the left was a large pink bedroom. It had to have belonged to a child. I imagined Rosie’s room looking like this. I felt a ping in my chest, and not from the fear. I barely knew the kid, but it still hurt to think about her. It was the loss of pure innocence that hurt me the most.

  I ran up to the window and stared through it, watching the blackened walking towards my location in this old home. Most had had a slight limp, but it wasn't as noticeable as the more decayed ones I've come in contact with. They walked up to the porch and stopped at the bottom of the steps. It’s like they were carefully calculating and processing how to step up, and then they did. I froze. I could hear their steps below me as they stepped across the wood, but they didn’t open the door. I walked toe-to-heel to the closet door and very slowly opened it, and that’s when a diseased rat ran out. I threw my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming, but it was running towards me. Its mouth was wide open, a black ooze coming from its eyes and dripping all over the floor. It underwent the same symptoms as most infected people did. I couldn’t shoot it, and I couldn’t stomp on it either. I had to be quiet. I kicked it away from me and watched it roll into the doorframe, shrieking upon impact. I felt terrible, but looking at its diseased face made me recall my remorse. The rat was stuck on its back, and I stood there, my feet planted, waiting for it to come back so I could kick it again. It rolled back onto its feet and started back at me, and then a hand appeared from behind the low portion of the doorframe. The rat was yanked out of sight, its shrieks getting louder, and then it stopped. I heard crunching that echoed through the emptiness, and that's when its body was tossed back into sight. Headless. I shrank back into the closet, pressing my body against the doors to keep myself out of sight. My heart was racing, adrenaline pulsing through my veins. Zombies were a child's worst nightmare, and there was a time when I used to think it would be cool to live in an apocalypse. Right now, I feel like a little kid afraid of the darkness under the bed. I was always scared, and I had nobody to prove my courage to right now, so I could let it show. It was nice to take the mask off, and this fear was crippling. I felt tears welling in my eyes as I took a deep breath and pulled out my pistol. This was going to give away my location, but I needed to save myself. I could survive, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be afraid too. I slowly leaned down underneath the coats and sank into the back of the closet. I could hear heavy, rapid breathing on the other side of the wall. They were making noises that didn’t make any sense, almost like a baby crying underwater. They groaned in pain, too, and that’s when I realized they were trying to form words. This wasn't the first time the blackened tried to speak to me.

  “I know you’re here,” The base of their words formed from a hiss upon exhalation. “I can hear your heart beating,” I furrowed my eyebrows and gripped the gun tighter. Their legibility was questionable, but their words gave me chills. They had to be more lucid than the others I had killed before. My guilt started to rise into my throat. That woman back at the parking garage who was infected, she was missing her nose. I remembered her speaking to me. She was telling me to help her. I looked in the mirror on top of the dresser across the room. I could see the speaking blackened on the ground, chewing on something. They slowly stood up and limped into the room, standing there and smelling the air. Their limp was deep, and they leaned so far over into it that it caused their same arm to drag on the ground. “Why do you get to be saved?” I quieted my breathing. I almost stopped altogether. I was terrified to think that maybe they would hear me. I didn’t have a clear shot yet, either. They were still out of my line of sight. “Why do you get to be saved!” They started screaming after their final word. Their scream pierced my ears, making my heart drop with complete and utter fear. It made my body feel warm and numb as my fright took over. That scream was inhumane. I watched their neck snap to the side, unnaturally bending as they fell to the ground and crawled towards me. My eyes widened, and I could feel my face going pale as I started rapidly pulling the trigger, aiming right for their head. They kept crawling after the first shot, but by the third, they were on the ground. The fourth and fifth bullet was just for good measure. In front of me lay a sick and twisted body with holes missing in its face. I didn’t realize I was crying until I hiccupped as I breathed in. I had never felt so scared. I crawled out from the closet and crossed my arms over my body, clutching my gun in my hand as I closed the bedroom door behind me. I looked downstairs, the entrance door swinging in the wind. I never latched it in the first place. I slowly crept down the steps and closed the door, then looked through the window towards the neighborhood. Nobody else was coming this way. A few stargglers were scattered on the overpass, but the one in the bedroom was the only one to make it this far. It was strange. The blackened at the gas station didn’t speak to us, or at least they didn’t in the small chances that they had. They heard the gunshots from far away, too, so why were these lingering around the houses and not rushing towards me? I pulled the curtains closed and made sure the door was latched again before grabbing a chair from the kitchen. I brought it upstairs and wedged it underneath the bedroom's handle in case the five bullets weren't enough. I went back downstairs and grabbed another chair to bring itto the bathroom and wedge that handle too. I would be safer in there. I laid out my guns in front of me, then grabbed a bottle of water. I was too sick to my stomach to eat anything. That blackened had terrified me to my core. I could still hear its voice echoing in my mind. I can hear your heart beating. I took a sip of my water to try to calm my nerves, but it wasn’t helping. I know you’re here. I could still hear them chewing on the rat. I stood up and slid the window up. A cold breeze blew inside. Why do you get to be saved? I leaned out, unable to fight back my vomit. Once I shrank back inside, closing the window behind me and trembling, I assessed that I did feel a little bit better. My leg ached a little bit, too, but not a lot. The injection Dalton gave me in the treehouse was working.

  I slowly leaned my head against the cabinet and watched the clock ticking in front of me. It was hanging above the door. I found it funny how an abandoned society still had a working clock like this. The sun had only just risen, but I found myself falling asleep. It was hard to keep my eyes open without my eyelids trying to drop and my pupils crossing. Sleep overcame me once that fear subsided, but the blackened haunted my dreams. It had taken a long time to gain enough courage to defend myself against the deer when the beginning of the end started. It scared me half to death to see them standing up, aiming their hoof at me, watching their antlers droop and move. Their bones and cartilage came to a flexible life. It was terrifying, and this was bringing me back. I was off my game.

  I woke up as the sun was going down, but I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t want to leave. It was the end of day four, and Dalton wasn’t here. He was a day late, but I couldn’t give up on him. I stayed lying against the counter and closed my eyes again. I hadn't gotten more than an hour of executive sleep all week. I listened to the sounds outside, the occasional blackened walking by, and the wind pressing against the house and whistling through the trees. The foundation would creak with each gust. I felt like I never fully fell asleep either. I was always aware of every sound that came from the outdoors. I lay there for the rest of the night, my mind too drowsy to attach to any real thought. When the sun came up again, I scrounged up enough energy to go downstairs and search the house. I found a few toys, expired food, canned food, and some water bottles. I only took two out of four of those items.

  I went into the living room and admired the family photos. Underneath them was a family album that I flipped through. It was a simple nuclear family. I'd seen similar setups in a class I took in high school. I started to imagine what their life was like and what their stories were, and then I wondered where they were now. I searched the rest of the house and didn’t find a trace of their bodies anywhere. After looking around again and playing boardgames with myself, I went back upstairs to my safe spot to read some books I had found. I was losing my mind from boredom, and ultimately fell asleep again. Hours upon hours of busy work were eating me alive. By the night of the fifth day, I was starting to question why I was still staying here, staring at the same four walls of the same bathroom, but the truth was, I was struggling to even pick myself up off the floor. For once, I still had the will to survive, and I was able, but it was hard. I was struggling, and I couldn’t stop thinking. With how tired I was and how sickly I started to feel, the energy to keep myself sane and happy was depleting. I just needed a second to catch up with myself, but Jacob’s life was on the line. The longer I was here, failing to catch up to him, the longer he would have to fight tooth and nail to stay alive. To keep a strong will against the military. I was failing him, and that made me feel worse. I was alone, Dalton had to be dead, and I was failing at the only job I had left. I was going to die here, wasn't I?

  I got up off the ground to grab more water, but to do so, I had to walk past the door I had left the zombie in. Sometimes I could hear it scratching at the door, whispering, but it didn’t scream or yell as it had before. Maybe because I damaged its vocal cords. I stared down the stairs at the front door, the moonlight lighting up the front porch. I could see a rabbit sitting through the window, staring at the entrance. I knew everything was a walking horror movie in this modern day, but being alone made it seem a whole lot scarier. I turned back to the child's bedroom and walked up to the chair, then sat up against the door. “I hear you.” They whispered.

  “I know,” I spoke in a calm voice. “Do you understand my words?” There was silence on the other side of the door. I started to think they could understand me.

  “I hear your heartbeat,” I stood up again. “Why do you get to be saved?” Their voice was raspy. I expected that, afterall, since their head had bullet holes through it. I didn't understand how they could form words, let alone understand what they were saying, but maybe more of their brain was intact than I had initially imagined. Everything they said was the same few things on repeat. Those feelings had to be their primary focus. They were full of hatred and anger. I would be too. I walked back to the bathroom and wedged the door shut again, then sat down and thought a little more about it. Maybe this virus enhanced a feeling they had to drive them forward. When I was losing motivation, my life was on the line. Their enhanced feelings would keep them motivated. That woman really wanted help back at the abandoned parking garage, and this person across the hall was angry. They were angry that I wasn’t one of them. Chills went up my spine, and I grabbed the blanket, curling back up in the corner. I had slept most of the day, but it was nighttime now. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to wait here, but I couldn’t get up either. I lost all will. Sometimes I wanted to wake up, take my gun, and just... I needed to go to sleep again. If I woke up, maybe it would be a dream.

  The sixth night, I had stopped hearing the scratching. I didn’t think zombies would get bored, but they were silent. I wasn’t going to go in there and check, though. They couldn't get deader than this. I planned to keep them in there forever. I tried putting them out of their misery, but it didn’t work very well. I had passed by the rabbit a couple of times, and it still just sat there, unmoving for days. I think it might have frozen in place from the cold, but it was getting warmer out. It would thaw eventually. Just today, I looked outside and saw the snow on the roof dripping off the edge of the gutter. During the night, it would freeze and create small icicles that would melt in the morning. I couldn’t seem to fall asleep anymore. I think I had slept too much. I was feeling rested enough to start truly feeling again, but I had wasted too many tears to cry. I would get lost in my thoughts, but in the middle of the night, my head dropped into silence. I had heard the door handle turn downstairs, and the door closed behind it. My heart completely dropped. I grabbed my assault rifle and made sure it was loaded before pulling the chair back. I grabbed the handle, taking a breath before I slowly opened and exited the bathroom. I looked across the hall at the child's bedroom and the chair still propped up against it. I slowly stepped forward, carefully stepping on the planks that I knew wouldn’t creak. I could hear shuffling downstairs, like someone was walking across the paper-littered floor. They were confident steps, though, that followed a steady pace. It wasn’t someone dragging their feet around or rummaging through bins. It couldn't be a blackened.

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  I camped around the corner of the wall and peered around it whenever I got a safe chance. I could see a flashlight flashing across the wall far from me as they flicked it around. The light got brighter the closer they got to the wall until they turned, shining it at the floor at the bottom of the stairs. I watched as they flicked it upwards, and I shot back behind the wall, barely missing the blinding light. It lit up the wall opposite from me. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I couldn’t say anything. If I said something, what if I scared them and they shot me? Or even worse, if they discovered me and got startled, they would shoot me too. I stood there, gun aimed and ready. I would have to take them down and disarm them first. I held my breath as I heard the second-to-last step creak. I saw them shine their light on the chair that wedged the child's bedroom door shut. They flicked it the other way, shining into the bathroom very briefly before they turned to the left to inspect the chair. It was obvious that I had been living here, and there was no hiding for me. I was directly behind them when I jumped forward, diving right for their waist. I lead with one of my elbows to dig in between their shoulder blades. I immediately grabbed their wrists as they were lying face down, knocking whatever they had in their hands away from them. I grabbed the pistol from their holster and jumped up, aiming at their face before they decided to overpower me. The element of surprise did me well, but once I didn’t have that anymore, I didn’t have the manpower to hold my place. It was the only thing I could do. They jumped up quickly and pulled a knife out of their pocket. I wanted to laugh when I thought of them bringing a knife to a gunfight, but I was overwhelmed with a whole different emotion. They completely relaxed their body, looking at me with the knife loosely in their palm. I aimed their own pistol at them, tears welling in my eyes. It was Dalton.

  “You,” I whispered. My eyes were wide, my heavy eyelids finally lifting. Tears pooled on my lower eyelids. I couldn’t scrounge up any other words to say. He stood still, catching his breath. He had a few-day-old gash across his cheek, right above the old one he had gotten from the truck tipping a while back. That one was almost fully healed now. His opposite eye was dark and purple. I couldn’t imagine what the rest of him looked like. He was wearing different clothes now, too. No wonder I couldn’t recognize him. He looked like one of the soldiers, but different. Half soldier, half survivor. He had to have scrounged up some of their clothes to keep him warm. I couldn’t begin to think about what happened to him out there, or how he got back here. It had been a week. A week. I didn’t lower his gun. I was pissed now. I couldn’t hide the glossiness of my eyes. “A week!” I yelled. He lightly flinched at my sudden change of tone. “If I didn’t stay- what if I- fuck, Dalton! Dammit!” My hands started to shake. I wasn’t sure how a tear hadn’t escaped from my eyes.

  “You stayed, and I made it.” He dropped the knife on the ground and put his palms by his sides. He still had them facing me, and then he stepped forward. Finally, I felt a tear roll down my cheek. I didn’t lower his gun, even when he was so close he was almost pressed against it. “I’m here now,” He repeated. He brought his hand up as he spoke, pushing the gun to the side and embracing me. He never hugged me. I never hugged anyone. He had to have seen how young my face looked now. How scared I looked. He felt so cold in my arms. “I’m sorry I took so long,” he whispered. I dropped the gun and pinched my eyes shut, hugging him back as the pooled tears finally broke. He had nothing else to say. I hugged him back, taking in the fact that there was a real living person in front of me that I could trust. He was here. I didn’t waste a week for nothing. Dalton was here after a week. Once I felt satisfied, I pushed him off of me. His heels hit the wall behind him.

  “Where the hell have you been!” I yelled. The scratching at the door across the hall started up again. A deep breathing seeped out from underneath. “The shit I’ve had to do, the people I’ve killed- what the fuck!” I quickly wiped my tears away with my palms. “Don’t ever leave me alone like that again. I can’t- not in a place like this,” He looked at me, trying to read my next move so he would know what to do, but his explanation would never be enough. He knew that.

  “I destroyed their footage,” I looked down at his bruised hands. “They have one clip, but your face isn’t in it. They found me, but that was after I wrecked the cameras,” I took a few deep breaths as he explained. It wasn’t making it any better, though. He knew where I stood.

  “I don’t care if they have my full government name, Dalton. If they have a photo of me pinned to the bulletin board, so be it!” I started laughing through my words. “Never risk your life for someone like me! Why would you do that? Not to mention,” I stepped up to him. I grabbed his shoulder, and he immediately pulled away, wincing at the pain. “You were hurt going in, which means you’ll be even worse off when you get out. You’re stupid. You’re so stupid!” He looked down at me, waiting to see when I would finish. “I can’t believe you,” I turned around and grabbed my gun, then his. I held them in each hand, staring down at them, then I handed his pistol over. “Fuck you, Soldier,” He stared at me for a few seconds before carefully taking his pistol back. I grabbed his free hand with my own. "You do that again, and I won't be so merciful."

  “Sniper, you see a ghost?” He stared back, unflinching. I don’t know what they had done to him, but he was really beaten up.

  “Thank you,” I let go of his hand. “You look like shit, too.” I walked into the bathroom and picked up my backpack. Well, his backpack. The one he had given me. “Who are you now? Coming in here with just a pistol?”

  “You know me,” He walked over to the chair propped on the door. “I brought a lot more than that,” He reached for the chair, but I stopped him. He jumped as I yelled with such desperation. His hand hovered over the seat. He wasn't expecting my intervention on something so small.

  “Don't!" I caught my breath. "Don't.” I grabbed his wrist and pulled him away. “Let's go. I need to get out of this place,” he glanced back at the door, then followed me down the stairs.

  “How’s the leg feeling?” He opened the entrance. I followed behind him, staring at the car perched out front. “Would you rather walk or take the car?” He pointed to it.

  “I take back almost everything I’ve said about you,” I stood next to him. I self-consciously had learned to put a little more weight on my good leg. I had developed a limp, too. I had always had one, but now it was obvious. I glanced back into the house, then past the car into the neighborhood crawling with blackened. Chills went up my spine. “I spent so much time embodying a survivor, and then you leave me alone for a week and I…” I rubbed my eyes. “I’m more vulnerable than I thought,” I stepped over to face him and reached into his pocket. I pulled out the keys. “And for that, I get to drive.” I took a couple of steps backwards, watching a smile grow on his face before I went to the driver's side. He started to laugh and climbed into the passenger seat. Seeing this thing from the inside was strange. It was electrically powered with so many lights outlining so many buttons, and communication systems were implanted into the center console. It reminded me of the firetrucks I used to ride in, but these were different. “Would you look at that,” I took my gloves off and ran my hand across the buttons, careful not to press them. “Soldier, how did you pull this off?”

  “Took a while, but I knew you were vulnerable. Figured you’d be here, so I thought I should take the leap,” I tried to hide the slight fear on my face. Something didn’t feel right, but he had just gone through a whole military base. For me. Who knew what he had been through? As I turned the car on, a screen in front of me lit up. I stared at it like a deer in headlights. I couldn’t believe it. He watched me as I looked into it.

  “Haven’t seen a screen in a while, have you?” I shook my head. I'd caught a glimpse of Hunter's phone screen before the bombing, but that was it. It was like riding a bike, though. I could easily navigate my way to the map. The map highlighted every military base. I froze again, realizing we had a whole system here. Everything new I found, I needed a moment to comprehend it. My mind wasn't working as fast as it typically did. I took the screen off the mantel and held it in my hands to get a better view.

  “Holy shit, Dalton,” I moved across the screen and clicked the nearest base. Instead of navigating me to it, though, it gave me hundreds of options. It had lists, switches for doors and lights, intercom access, data logs, and more. I felt like I was going cross-eyed looking into it. I clicked on the list of personnel and started to scroll. It showed doctors, chefs, soldiers, and many more personnel than I could ever imagine alive in one community. I found a new subsection underneath the soldiers tab and clicked on it. Hundreds of kids started to pop up on my screen. I scrolled down through them all until I landed on a familiar face. Emma. I clicked on her. Dalton leaned over to get a view of what I was doing. She had a whole statistical chart filled out, but she had a mark next to her name. I exited out and clicked on the random person below her. They didn't have the same marking. I kept moving through the list until I had clicked on everyone I knew. They all had the marking, and the rest didn’t. I opened Dylan’s title and clicked on it. I was directed to a new screen that showed me a file. I clicked on the file, and a document popped up labeled Delta Company. I was lost in many rabbitholes, but I was right where I needed to be. There it was, all of my friends’ pictures side by side with their names underneath, and up above them was a soldier I had never seen before. He was masked, and underneath his image was the name “Reaper”. I clicked on him to learn more, but it didn’t have his real name. Other than the uniform he had on, there was a necklace that seemed to be his own. I couldn’t tell what it was, though. He didn't look human, the more I observed his image. Everything he wore was solid black. I clicked out of it and went onto one of the attached videos. “Dalton, look at this,” I hit his arm. He looked over, staring at the video.

  “I’ve watched it a few times,” He looked down at the familiar scene, but I had never seen it. It was footage of the gas station from a camera on top of the overpass. It was pointed towards the station. There was a horde of the blackened heading towards it, but they were dropping one by one. The camera zoomed in, but it could only make out the shape of the shooter. It was me in the window, sniping them down. Another video was playing next to it from the camera at the top of the hill. Its line of sight was aimed at the station's backside. I watched as the crowd got bigger and bigger, and then the video on the left showed Dalton and me running out. It couldn’t make out our faces; we were running at the perfect angle. The station exploded behind us, the video on the right capturing the whole thing. The camera shook and fell onto the road, going black. The left video still played as Dalton, and I fell on the ground, scrambling back up to our feet. We were about to turn our heads at an angle the camera would capture, but it went black before we gave it that chance. Dalton had stolen the rest of the footage. I clicked out of the video and searched further down the document. There was nothing here about Jacob. In the same file, underneath the videos, was a snippet of my outline in the gas station window. A caution symbol was placed next to it. I was labeled to be shot on sight, but they didn't have my face. They had no clue who I really was.

  I went back to the list to search for Jacob, but he was nowhere to be found. I looked over to Dalton, fear in my eyes. “The person I'm looking for isn’t on here,” I whispered. Dalton reached over and took the monitor from me. He clicked a few buttons as if he was familiar with it, then asked for a name and how to spell it.

  “Jacob,” I replied. “J. A. C. O. B,” he nodded and typed a few words in, then handed the monitor back to me.

  “He’s there,” He watched me sigh with relief. There were two jacob's, but he clicked on the one that looked like me. He had chosen right. In front of me was a picture of him, his eyes dark. He was labelled dangerous, too, and he was in containment. I could see exactly which wing of the building he was in. He had no statistics attached and was labeled “No immunizations”. There wasn’t much else connected to his file. I went back to the main stream and clicked onto the cameras instead, slowly switching around the base.

  “This makes everything so much easier,” I switched to the front view camera. I could see the entrance, and started to learn the blindspots. “If we watch this long enough, we can learn their schedules, or hell, we can find their schedules, then I can get in there and get the people I was looking for. This is perfect,” I quickly tapped through the cameras until I found one in the doctor's lab. Hunter was there, sitting in a chair. I zoomed in. “Is there audio on these things?” I stared at all of the buttons. Dalton looked over and clicked one. He was clearly familiar with this.

  “How has your mobility been?” The doctor asked him. Hunter moved his arm around. I remembered when it had been sticking out of his arm. I was the one to put the splint on it, afterall. It wasn't physically possible for him to be this mobile.

  “Good as new, honestly,” He put his arm back down. “No pain at all, either,” The doctor wrote some things down. It hadn’t been long enough for him to heal like that.

  “We can stop the treatment unless anything new comes up. I hear you’re all caught up on your training as well. You’re cleared to join the mission. You're dismissed.” Hunter stood up and shook her hand, then went over to the door. I turned the camera to follow him, but he must have noticed it. He glanced up at it, furrowing his eyebrows, and continued his path out of the room. I clicked through the cameras, trying to switch to ones that would follow him, but I stopped at a different camera. It was Jacob, sitting in a room. He looked incredibly exhausted, and he was clutching a metal bar like his life depended on it. I looked around at the buttons. There were so many options to choose from, but nothing looked helpful. There was nothing I could do... or was there?