Better Than Trees

I don't know how far I've gone, I have no destination in mind, and if I stop running, I die.

All around me, I hear the snarls and moans of the undead ambling along behind me, mouths snapping noiselessly as my legs carry me farther and farther away from town.

Away from my home.

Away from a barren wasteland of a place I used to rest my head every night in the safety of my walls. I could hear the dead outside my door, and we would draw the blinds.

Every night, the dead seemed to congregate in the street, like they were waiting for us. We would turn off all the lights and sleep in the same room on the second floor, vowing not to make noise until dawn, when they moved on.

I never knew just how good I had it, living with mom and dad, until the day the herd came through.

I'd had a survival plan for weeks now, ever since the dead stopped staying dead. There was a bag by the door for my own sake: a survival kit, and my pistol with nine bullets.

The Tenth bullet was worn around my neck. My dad told me to do that, so in case I was ever surrounded by the beasts, I could use that final one for a swift, painless death.

I'd shudder whenever he mentioned it, but I knew he was right. The neighbor's son was eaten by those things. It was no good way to die.

I'd feel the cold bullet on my skin and it would sober me right up, and my eyes would wander to my survival bag. I would go over to it, take everything out, count all the inventory, then pack it all up again.

Every morning, I make sure everything in that bag is ready, because unlike the neighborhood, I know it's a ticking time bomb before I have to bail out of my safe haven and run for shelter. I run the list of supplies through my head every night before I go to sleep:

Three large steak knives
A large orange blanket for warmth, encasing the knives
Two pairs of jeans
A jacket
A sweater
A tank top
A small length of rope
A pack of matches
A small gauze roll
A water filter
A flashlight
A hatchet from the garage
My pistol.

If the dead broke down the door, I had my orders: take the survival supplies and run.

The herd came at four in the morning, no warning. One of them fell down and broke a railing. It startled my parents and I out of our sound sleep as it crashed outside, alerting every walker in the area to our front yard.

There must have been fifty of them. Noise draws more noise, and they just began to wander. They pressed against the windows, and the smell seeped up through the vents. It was only a matter of time before they got around the back of the house.

"Can you get out the back window?" Mom was asking me. I hardly remember anything other than my blood turning to ice and the feeling leaving my hands and fingers.

"Yeah, I can. What about you and dad?"

"We'll be right behind you," Dad told me, "Take the supplies and run."

I nodded, and he touched my face gently.

"We'll be right behind you," Mom repeated, grabbing the back of my neck and pulling me toward her, kissing me right at the hairline. The loss of the soft pressure left me feeling cold, and tears stung at the corners of my eyes.

"I'll wait for you where it's safe. I love you,"

My hand was pulled from my father's, and as quickly as I could manage, I went down the stairs, pulling the strap of the black bag over my shoulder and putting the pistol into my loose fitting pants. I stumbled into my boots and looked out the back window. Clear. For now.

I took a deep breath and slipped out the back window, where the dead had not yet migrated. They were currently headed that way, but I had a head start on them.

My feet hit the ground, and I ran without stopping. I knew in my heart of hearts that I was likely not going to see my parents again, and I forced myself not to think about that.

A walker appeared from around the back of the neighbor's house. It took me a moment to register, but I raised the gun. I stopped running to focus, closed one eye, adjusted the level, and pulled the trigger.

It was a sloppy shot, seeing how the most I'd ever aimed at was the one time I went to play paintball, so the bullet hit its cheek. I clicked the gun and fired again, watching the walker's head snap back. He toppled to the ground, and I began to move again as the walkers out front were drawn toward the noise.

I made it to the woods not far away from home, legs burning in the cool of the night air, and I climbed a tree. The bag on my back set off my balance, so I set my teeth and gripped the upper branches, my toes finding the knots on the tree and trying to push upward.

I found a branch a good six feet off the ground that I could sit on to keep away from the dead, and I braced against the trunk of the tree and tried not to look down. As afraid as I was of heights, this was no time to think about that.

I was more focused on the twisting feeling in my lower intestine, like the bottom of my stomach had dropped out. I gripped the limb of the tree and waited.

While I waited, I regretted having to use two bullets to take out the walker. Maybe I could have outrun him. Maybe those two shots doomed my parents. Maybe those two shots could've been used later.

It was late still, still four in the morning, and there was no light except the moon that was hidden by dismal clouds.

I laid my head against the tree trunk to keep my balance and shut my eyes for a while, blocking out the sounds of the dead. I waited for my parents.

Two hours passed, and the sun was coming up, and I still waited for my parents.

The walkers were long since inside my house, with no sign of my parents yet. Maybe they were dead. Maybe they were dead by my hand. But I still waited for my parents.

An hour later, two walkers ambled by under the tree and paused to look up at me. I aimed down at the one, closed my eye, and pulled the trigger. I missed by a hair and hit the ground between them. I steadied my arm and aimed again, this time hitting the walker on the left. It was close range, anyone could have done it.

The other walker stared up at me for the longest time as I picked my spot to shoot it. The thing I noticed about it was how fresh its skin was. This person had been alive recently, and its eyes were more brown than gray.

And as I stared down at that walker, I realized that this had become my life. This was what I was doomed to live with, because communications had been down. Maybe there was no cure. If there was, it would be expensive and rare. This walker right here with its foggy brown eyes, peachy white skin, and frizzy, choppy hair, this was what I was going to become when I died.

I closed my eyes and let reality fall around me. My parents were probably never going to find me. I felt the cool of the bullet on my chest.

I aimed the gun from between the walker's eyes, and put the end of it between my teeth.

Suddenly, a trigger was the most difficult thing to pull in the world. My arms felt heavy, my fingers like stone. I dropped the gun in my lap to sob against my hands.

A gunshot snapped me out of my thoughts, and immediately my hands went back to my gun. I watched the walker at the base of the tree drop to the ground with a splatter of blood. The noise was loud, and it almost scared me out of the tree, but luckily, I grabbed the trunk.

I screamed into my hand, pointing the gun into the bushes where the sound resonated from.

"Don't shoot!" A man's voice called to me.

"Get out of here before I blow your brains out. I may have just killed my own parents, and I am not messing around. Who do you think you are, anyway?"

"My name's Keanu. Keanu Reeves. I don't want any trouble. I just want to talk."

"Show yourself," I kept the gun aimed at the bushes.

A kid stepped out of the shadows, maybe in his early twenties. His face was long and thin, his skin white as snow, with high cheekbones. He held both hands in the air, with his fingers away from the trigger of the gun. He was camouflaged well, with a fitted back shirt, dark jeans, and combat boots, his hair black and brushed back out of his face.

He put the gun on the ground at his feet.

"I just want to talk to you," he said, his voice like silk. He held up his hand as though he was going to help me down, but couldn't reach.

I stayed put for a minute, my gun pointed at him, but then I lowered it slowly, stowing it down my shirt.

I swung my legs off the branch and grabbed the thin limb around the base, extending my arms so I only had about a foot-and-a-half drop.

The drop was ungraceful, but I swung my bag back onto my shoulders. I watched Keanu look down at the gun in the front of my shirt, and they way it pulled down my neckline, and we both twinged pink and look in opposite directions.

"I'm sorry about your parents," Keanu said finally.

"Don't bother," I answered quickly. This stranger didn't know a thing about me. Or them.

"Hey, I'm was only trying to help," he said easily, his voice smooth and calm. He held up his hands innocently.

"I'm Keanu. What's your name?"

I paused and looked down at his hands. His right palm was wrapped up in a dirty gauze.

His hand engulfed mine entirely when I went to shake, and for an injured hand, he had a firm grip, long slender fingers, and a way of completely encasing my hand with his own.

"Charlotte Cohen, but call me Charlie," I replied, not looking him in the eye.

"Do you have a place to live?"

"No, my house was overrun last night. My parents said they'd follow me out, but they didn't get to me yet. It's been three or four hours... I don't think they're coming out,"

Keanu's eyes filled with worry and compassion for a stranger.

"I'm sorry," he said, like he didn't know what else to say.

There was a pause of silence that allowed my throat to dry up. He was still holding my hand, so I removed my fingers from his grip.

"I've got a place I've been staying after this began. Its still got electricity and water. Food's limited, and so are guns, but it's there."

I nodded slowly.

"Yeah, okay, I guess...,"

He gently put his hand on my shoulder.

"It's better than trees,"

"Better than trees," I repeated, throat tight.

He picked up my bag for me, and we started trekking through the woods, and I had to be thankful for the fact I didn't pull the trigger.