Zombies climb over the shelves. I stab one in the eye with my screwdriver. I cut one's head off with the machete. Sarah cuts a zombie in half with her chainsaw.

The woman with the bite screams. A zombie has her hair. Before I can do anything, she's pulled away. She screams as the zombies eat her alive. Blood pours onto the tiles.

I grab the cleaver and hit a zombie in the middle of the forehead. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. The zombies just keep coming. One after the other. After what feels like hours of fighting, the zombies finally stop coming.

"Did we do it?" Karla asks.

"I think we did," I say.

The whole store is filled with bodies. I look outside. The sun is starting to rise. How long were we fighting? I walk towards the front door. I hear a gunshot. I get down. Who is that? Mia is next to me.

"You need to get to the roof. It will give us an advantage against who's shooting at us," she says.

I can see the back door. It's far, but I can try to make it. I get ready. I sprint to the door with my head down. Shots are fired at my feet. They all miss. I push the back door open. There is a ladder leading to the roof next to me. I start climbing it. I reach the roof.
There is a table and chair set up. Someone is, or was living up here. As I get closer, I realize a dead body is in the chair. He has a bite mark on his arm and a bullet wound to the chest. I'm guessing he turned and someone else had to shoot him. By his feet is a rifle with a scope. I pick it up. This will come in handy.

I hear a gunshot. Looking through the scope of the rifle, I can see a man with a rifle like the one I'm holding. He is on top of a gas station roof across the street. He has a black shirt on with a skull painted on it. The same skull that was on those trucks yesterday.

He takes another shot. I aim at him. I begin squeezing the trigger. Someone pushes the rifle right as I take the shot, making me miss. The gun is knocked out of my hands. A woman wearing a gas mask is holding me down. I pull out my knife. She grabs my hand before I can stab her. I push her off. I stand up. She pulls out her knife. She charges at me. I throw her into the table. The table collapses.

She rips off her mask. I'm shocked at who it is. I never thought I'd see her again. She comes at me with her knife. I grab her wrists.

"Drop the knife, now!" I say.

She lets it go.

"What the hell, Elizabeth?" I yell.

She has a skull on her shirt.

"You're with them?" I ask.

Another gunshot rings out. I grab the rifle. I aim at the man across the street and shoot him. I sling the rifle over my shoulder.

"Where is my family?" Elizabeth asks.

"You don't even know? The people you're with took them," I say.

"No, they don't take people," she says.

"Yeah, they do. They have my sister, and they have yours, too," I say. "Why did you attack me?"

"You left me," she says.

"What?"

"You left me to die at that hospital!" she yells.

"You pushed me out of the window. I heard you scream, I thought you died. What did you want me to do? Risk my life to see if you were dead or not? You and your parents will never appreciate all I've done for you. I saved you. If I didn't help you, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You'd be dead. Even after that, I helped you find your parents. I did everything I possibly could for you and your family and I'm treated horribly. The other day, I was surrounded by zombies, and Henry left Jake and I to die," I say.

"Why are you even here? What about Oakwood?" she asks.

"Oakwood is gone and so are the people who used to live there," I say.

I start climbing down the ladder.

"Jade, what happened?" she asks.

I reach the ground. She climbs down.

"A horde wiped the camp out. The things I saw...it was horrifying," I say.

"Does my family think I'm dead?" she asks.

That's what you're most concerned about? I nod. We head inside. How come I'm the bad guy here?

"Let's go to your group," I say to Mia.

We walk outside. Mia leads us through the streets. I pull out my map. The mall isn't too far. Mia tells us the mall is surrounded by a fence. I'm so tired. I haven't slept since the day everyone was taken.

We reach the mall. Mia unlocks the gate. We walk through the large parking lot. I wonder if any of these cars work. Mia walks through the revolving door. We all step inside. People walk towards us. They have their guns drawn. We raise our hands.

"It's me," Mia says annoyed.

A woman with long brown hair stands in front of Mia.

"You leave in the middle of the night only to come crawling back three days later? I guess life out there is too tough for you," the woman says.

"Please, just let us stay here," Mia pleads.

"Fine, but no one stays here for free. You and the people you brought along better contribute or I'll send you right back out on the street," The woman says.

"They'll help out, right?" Mia asks.

"We will," I say.

Everyone lowers their weapons. We walk up the escalators. All the stores have tents and sleeping bags inside. People stare as we walk by. A man looks at the scar on my wrist. I pull my sleeve down to cover it. These people would probably kick me out if they found out I'm partially infected.

"You guys can go pick where you're going to sleep. I need to do a few things," Mia says.

"Where can we sleep?" I ask.

"Anywhere that isn't in the way or already taken," she says before walking away.
I look around.

All the stores on this floor are already occupied. I walk down the escalators. There are two places without any tents inside.

One is a shoe store which isn't very spacious, the other is a book store. I walk into the bookstore. Jake, Alex, Clarissa, and Sarah follow me. I put my bag down. I wish we had a tent. I did have one at Oakwood that I wish I brought with us. I roll out my sleeping bag. We eat and then go to sleep. I hope Sam is okay, wherever she is. Jenny and Hannah are probably terrified.

They probably don't even know what life was before the world ended. Jake tells me he remembers it a little, but it's sad that all these kids have known is this way of living.

Early into the apocalypse, Iris was hopeful that things might return to normalcy. I never had hope that things would be normal. I knew the zombies couldn't be destroyed or cured. I knew it was always going to be like this.