Living Dead

„Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."

William Shakespeare

The ring of her cell phone startled Kat awake in her bed. She switched on the lamp on the nightstand, glancing at the glowing display.

Incoming call from Dad.

Her black German shepherd's head rose, and her ears stood up alertly as soon as Kat answered the call.

"Dad," she spoke sleepily into the phone, concern resonating in her tone, "are you okay?"

He frantically stammered out the words so Kat could barely understand.

"Calm down, I cannot catch a word you're saying."

"You need to get out of your apartment and come here, right now!"

Befuddled by her deep sleep, she tried to process his sentence, which made no sense at all.

"What, why? It's the middle of the night."

"Kat!" he now called through the line, "we don't have time to argue. Pack what you need and get here. Now!"

Kat kicked the blanket off her feet to help her sit up. She found it much easier to think that way.

"You're going to tell me what the hell is going on!" His behavior gradually caused her initial concern to turn into fear.

"We don't have time for this..."

"You said that already," she interrupted her father again.

Her dog was on high alert as she sat down beside Kat, pressing her wet nose against the woman's thigh. Even she sensed something was wrong and didn't budge an inch from Kat's side.

"Have you been watching the news lately? Something feels off."

This wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation at this point but ringing Kat out of bed at night was clearly going too far. Her patience had limits.

"Dad," she tried to calm him, "you're seeing ghosts. Go back to bed, I'll call you-"

The bang of an explosion inside the city stifled her sentence before she could even finish it. Her heart began to pound wildly against her ribcage, pumping blood through Kat's body at top speed as adrenaline worked its magic to mobilize any energy reserves. With the cell phone in her hand, Kat walked to her bedroom window.

Kat?" she heard her father's muffled call through the phone, "Kat! What's going on with you?!"

Trembling, she brought the cell phone to her right ear.

"The hospital is...it..." she couldn't manage more than a stammer, "there was an explosion." Immediately she had her brother's face in front of her. "Alex was..." Kat didn't finish the words, the finality of them too hard to bear.

"Kat! Get the hell out of there. Now!"

Automatically, she filled her hiking backpack with the things that she and her father considered important. Essential was the gun that he'd handed her a while ago, due to the increasing number of break-ins in her neighborhood. Kat had refused, but he had insisted, pressing the gun into her hands with the words "it let's your old man sleep better at night."

Kneeling in front of her closet, she typed the combination into the small safe, which immediately popped open with a beep, revealing the pistol. With awe, Kat took it in her hands, the feeling of the cold metal sending goosebumps all over her body. It'd been a while since she had held this gun in her hands, and the feeling was not a good one as she packed it into the backpack alongside the box of ammunition.

Everything Kat did seemed to happen in slow motion and though the young woman was hardly aware of her surroundings, she felt her heartbeat all the more intensely.

Bum bum. Bum bum.

It pounded with such intensity that she feared it might burst out of her chest at any moment.

Her dog lay in the corner of the room, looking at Kat out of her brown eyes, completely overwhelmed by the current situation.

"Everything will be fine," she assured, the encouragement more meant for herself.

Kat took one last look out the window. Where the hospital had once been, there was now a sea of fire.

⚚

Cold sweat trickled down my forehead as I woke up, haunted by another nightmare. I blinked several times to adjust to the bright rays of sunlight falling directly on my face. My head felt as if a truck had rolled over it, then put it in reverse, and run over me again. The pressure in the top of my skull made me groan out in pain.

"She's awake," I could hear a woman's muffled voice.

Even though I considered the term "awake" to be a bit optimistic for my comatose state.

"Kat?" It was Officer Friendly himself. "Can you hear me?"

Yes, I could definitely hear him. But the resulting headache made me wish he would shut up.

My response was a short grumble.

"Damn it Shane, I had it under control."

Well, if he wasn't way off base with that one.

"I beg to differ," came from Shane, whose opinion I shared in this case.

Hate to, but I did.

Slowly, my consciousness returned, making the early streaks disappear and the scene in front of me clearer. Rick, as well as the unknown woman, knelt in front of me, honest concern in their gazes as they eyed me.

Brunette long hair framed the face of the woman, her reproachful gaze directed at Shane.

"I agree with Rick, that was unnecessary."

Shane, standing at a healthy distance with a shotgun in his hand, made no attempt to retort. But the affected look in his eyes spoke volumes. The woman's mental slap in the face bothered him more than he wanted the outside world to see. The tension in the air was almost palpable.

"I'm sorry about your head," Rick apologized the excessive behavior of his friend, who didn't spare me a second glance.

I would certainly not hear an apology from him. More likely, hell would freeze over.

"My head is throbbing," I stammered out, while I felt warm blood running down my temple.

I felt miserable, like after a night of partying, only there had been neither party nor alcohol. Not to mention the missing fun.

"Lori, water and a rag. Quickly," Rick instructed the woman, to which she immediately responded by standing up.

A good dose of oxycodone would've made me more joyful, but I'd take what I could get.

"Kat." The sheriff returned his attention to me as his hand moved to the back pocket of his jeans, presenting me a carefully folded piece of paper. "Why do you wanna go to the Center for Disease Control?"

His index finger pointed to the red mark on a map that looked all too familiar.

A few seconds passed before I realized that it was indeed my map he was holding in his hands. Instinctively, I wanted to reach for my backpack, but couldn't move. A circumstance that caused panic in me. Fidgeting, I tried to break free of the restraints, but the ropes were far too tight. I couldn't believe that they had tied me down like a wild animal. After nearly having my skull bashed in.

"Untie me! Now!" My screams were the result of unsuccessful attempts and the slowly burgeoning desperation. I wouldn't be locked up.

Not again.

"Rick! If you don't shut her up, I will!" Shane looked around warily, as my loud protests were sure to attract freaks from miles away. A fact I was heartily uninterested in. "She's gonna get us killed!"

The predominant chaos was finally interrupted by the outcry of a third party.

"What's that noise!"

The familiar sound of that voice made my breath hitch, stifling my cries within seconds. I hadn't heard it in far too long, let alone expected to do so ever again.

Had I finally gone mad?

Or had the hard hit on my head caused more damage than suspected?

Maybe I was hearing ghosts by now.

Just as I was questioning my judgment, a young man appeared in sight.

Though his face was covered in a mixture of dirt and sweat, I would recognize those warm eyes, brown tousled hair that had grown quite a bit since the last time, and that ever-wrinkled forehead anytime.

Abruptly he stopped as soon as his gaze found mine. Wide open eyes stared at me, scanning my face in disbelief, trying, to process the situation, just as I was. Tears blurred my vision and I blinked hard to shake them off, but it was no use. They rolled down my cheeks the moment he sprinted toward me.

"Kat!" the man shouted, wrapping his arms around my neck. Burying his fingers in my red hair, he hugged me tightly. Relief echoed in his voice realizing this wasn't a hallucination.

"This isn't a dream!"

I sobbed heavily as I buried my head in the crook of my lost brother's neck.

Alex...Alex...", I repeated his name like a broken record.

My headache seemed almost vanished, and I completely blanked out the presence of the others. Nothing mattered at that moment. Nothing, except the strong arms of my brother, who held me tight and never wanted to let go.

⚚

Kat was angry.

Angry at this world.

At her hopeless situation.

At herself.

And her father.

Hands propped on either side of the sink, her head hung down almost lifelessly, letting the wet strands fall into her face.

She gripped the porcelain more tightly.

When she looked up into the broken mirror, she barely recognized herself. The woman she'd been a couple of weeks ago seemed broken.

Nothing remained.

Kat ran her fingers over the blood and dirt stained skin, looking at the deep circles under her eyes, that were the result of lack of sleep. Her face looked pale and haggard.

A shell of her former self.

Sighing, she pulled a torn cloth from her pants pocket and held it under the tap.

"Screw this," she thought, trying her luck.

Nothing.

Not a single drop came out of the pipe.

Why had she expected anything else?

Kat's giggles filled the small bathroom that was no bigger than a storage room. She was so naive that she couldn't help but laughing at herself.

But she had always been like that. Naive, trusting and often too good for the world. Qualities that had only gotten her into trouble.

Only the strongest survive, her father had constantly tried to teach her. And yet, this motto had not reached her very core. A fact that would most likely get her killed soon. At least that's what she thought.

This world required selfishness, cold-bloodedness, and a strong will to give up everything for the sake of survival, even one's own humanity.

There was no room for feelings, empathy, or mercy.

Kat wasn't ready for the end of the world, never had been. And yet she had to face this new life every day anew.

Frustration began to rise in her again, until it finally turned to anger and released itself in a hard blow against the mirror. Shards of glass spattered across the white tiled floor, clattering with the impact before Kat was once again surrounded by silence.

"Kat?" she heard her father say, frantically banging on the door, "everything okay in there?"

She had no answer to that, not the kind her father would've liked to hear. Physically, yes, she was fine. Except for the bleeding knuckles. But Kat herself was by no means. Nothing was okay, none of the things that'd been going on were even remotely "okay".

Wordlessly, Kat opened the door, paying no attention to her father as she walked past him.

"Hey! I asked you a question, Kat! What was going on in there?"

Theodore Brooks knew that his relationship with his daughter had changed fundamentally. A wall of emotional distance had formed between them. Each passing day made it grow, and now it seemed impossible to overcome. A normal hug felt cold and empty, like a desperate attempt to cling to something that had long since ceased to exist. His choices had led to this, he was aware of that, and that realization pulled him deeper and deeper into the vortex of self-loathing.

Against his better judgment, he grabbed Kat's wrist holding her back so she couldn't run from him again.

Blood ran down his daughter's shredded knuckles. All Theodore had to do was putting one and one together to get a rough idea of what might have occurred.

However, venting her emotions through fists was unlike his daughter.

"If you have something to say, say it. You've never had a problem with the truth."

He was calm, collected you might say, as he waited for the words to finally leave her mouth. For far too long, Kat had kept them under wraps. She was like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode at any moment.

"Just say it."

Kat paid him no attention, instead looking down at her feet and chewing on her lower lip to resist the urge. It was boiling inside her, but she wouldn't and couldn't say anything.

Once the words were spoken, there was no taking them back.

Determined, she pulled herself out of her father's grasp, her eyes still fixed on the ground.

"I had to get you away," Theodore tried to justify his behavior that night.

Except there never was a reasonable excuse for his decision. Every day, every minute, every second, he had tried to calm his conscience, but the guilt had grown louder each passing day.

"The hospital was destroyed, there was no saving Alex," a deeply felt sadness resonated at the name of his deceased son, "but for you, there was Kat."

"We should have tried! I wanted to," she finally said, looking at her father for the first time. Tears pooled on the waterline of her eyes.

"You made this choice for me. And I don't know if I can ever forgive you for that."

Kat saw the heartbroken look on her father's face. He had expected it, but now that the words were spoken aloud, no one could have prepared him for their impact. Like a dagger, they pierced his heart and tore it in two. Not only did he no longer have a son, he'd just lost his daughter, too.

⚚

For a long time, Alex and I had hugged and comforted each other as we celebrated our reunion. People in the camp had stared at us in disbelief because none of the survivors had known my identity.

How could they? I wasn't exactly carrying around a birth certificate.

Well, it didn't matter anyway.

Alex had never mentioned my name, let alone talked about his past. Therefore no one knew there was an older sister.

At least until now.

My brother's hands gently cupped my cheeks.

"I can't believe it," Alex voiced both of our thoughts out loud.

Finding him alive after all this time was like a damn miracle.

"The hospital..." I mumbled before my voice failed me, not sure where to begin.

I had seen it. The explosion and the fire that had raged after it, destroying everything in its vicinity. There was no way he could've survived that and yet Alex was sitting in front of me, alive.

"I wasn't there."

The deep sound of his raspy voice combined with the serious features of his face made my skin crawl. He looked so damned much like Dad it made my throat tighten.

"Mike had switched shifts with me, said something about accompanying his pregnant wife to an ultrasound," Alex swallowed hard as he continued his story, "so I'd taken his morning shift..."

His breath hitched for a split second. I knew exactly what was going through his mind, that he was blaming himself, 'cause I knew the feeling all too well. More than once I had asked myself "Why".

Needless to say, I still haven't found the answers myself.

"You couldn't have known, Alex," I spoke softly, placing my hand lightly over his. "It's not your fault."

"Still...Ever day I'm wondering what happened to his wife and unborn child. Yet I know the answer all along."

"Don't..." I took his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me, "or those thoughts will eat you up from the inside out." Once again I pulled him into my arms. "You're here, that's what matters now."

I held the last remnants of my family tightly against me, as if I could ward off any harm that might befall us. He returned the gesture gratefully.

"Missed you, Kat."

I smiled. "You too, little brother."

Our brief embrace made me long for the comfort of his body warmness. But Alex was already rummaging through the first aid kit.

With a professional precision that had amazed me so many times in the past, he examined my head injury. His thumb wiped the blood from my temple before he took out a cloth and began to provisionally treat my laceration.

"Got hit pretty hard."

My gaze wandered towards the man who'd knocked me out without warning. The fact that I'd provoked the escalation with my unbeatable charisma never left my lips, though.

"Yeah. Thanks to the nice welcoming committee."

"You're lucky Shane didn't shoot you on sight."

"You're right, remind me to write him a thank-you card after this," I countered in the deepest sarcasm.

The corners of my brother's mouth curled into an amused grin.

"Some things never change."

"You mean my irresistible charm?"

"Actually, I'm talking about your talent for getting you into trouble."

I shrugged wordlessly. He had a point.

"They're good people," he finally began, "I probably wouldn't be alive if it weren't for them."

My eyes wandered around the camp. Men, women, and children had found refuge here. The many tents and small campfire area gave the impression of a peaceful camping trip, yet the world around us was far from that.

"The bleeding wound on my head says otherwise." I would not trust these people that easily. Even the fact that they'd rescued my little brother and taken him in didn't diminish my distrust. I had learned my lesson and would not repeat my mistakes, that was for sure.

A sharp pain made me flinch. Instinctively, I backed away.

"Fuck, Alex. That hurts!"

"Don't be like that," he pulled on my arm firmly, the tweezers in his right hand, "you know I have to clean the wound."

My response was merely a short grumble. I gritted my teeth when he went back to work.

For a while, neither of us said a word. I fought the uncomfortable pain while Alex carefully removed every last piece of stone and dust. The more time passed, the more uneasy became the atmosphere between us. I knew the question would come sooner or later.

"Kat?"

I swallowed hard as I looked up at him.

"Huh?"

"What happened?"

The pitiful look in his eyes hurt more than the fucking injury. I didn't want pity, especially not from him. The shame of my failure sat deep, making it almost impossible for me to speak.

"I'm sorry, Alex."

I apologized for leaving him alone.

Asked for forgiveness for not being able to protect Dad.

And felt deep remorse for my lack of faith in his survival.

Alex took a deep breath, finally putting the utensils aside. The next words seemed difficult to say.

"I was standing outside your apartment that night," he revealed a detail from the night of the outbreak, "I'd called so many times trying to reach you on the phone, but they were already dead."

I nodded. The phone network had been the first to go down.

"I waited for some time. But you were already gone. Deep down, I knew. I knew you were with Dad," my brother's voice sounded sad, "he would've never left the city without you."

Another wave of guilt washed over me as I thought about Alex being out there alone while Dad and I fought our way through it together. Humanity was going downhill, the dead populating the streets and eating the living. It was an utterly hopeless situation, but at least we'd had each other.

Alex, on the other hand, had been all alone and I knew exactly how that felt.

Because this feeling had accompanied me constantly for the past few weeks.

"I...we thought that you weren't-"

"no longer alive," he completed my sentence, "I know, Kat."

The fact that we had done nothing more than accept his presumed death haunted me to this day and was one of the reasons I hadn't been able to look Dad in the eye for a long time. My own reflection had been unbearable as much. It still was.

But blaming our father was easier than admitting that I had made a mistake, just like him.

"I'm sorry, Alex," I repeated.

Those four words seemed like a hypocritical phrase that had lost all meaning and seriousness anyway, but I didn't know what else to say.

Comfortingly, his hand laid over my own.

"It's not your fault. And it's not Dad's either." Alex looked into my eyes, not a spark of anger or disappointment lingering in them. "I'm glad he got you outta there."

Our conversation left me feeling relieved. His sincere words were like balm to my soul, which had been consumed by guilt for so long.

The past didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was that we were together again. And I would give anything to keep it that way.

Well, that was the second chapter!

I hope you liked it :)
Please let me know in the comments, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Lots of love.