13

I sat looking out the window at the deep green trees. I had never thought trees to be beautiful, but after the ugly boring desert, trees were the most wonderful things I'd seen. We pulled off the highway at the something-teen gas station today looking for one that had anything left in the tank. The caravan pulled in one behind the other, and as soon as the RV stopped, I climbed out to stretch my legs. Ma and Pa were already out and directing traffic with their shotguns slung casually at their sides. Before I could take more than 5 steps from the RV, Ma stopped me.

"Girl, your holster's empty again. You're not going anywhere like that. Go get your revolver if you plan to go anywhere. Oh, and don't forget your knife." Ma is kind of like the grandma to all of us in the caravan. Pa is her husband. They're one of the lucky couples who were able to make it out of all of this together. I trudged back inside the RV and grabbed my little revolver and my knife that felt like a butcher's knife with how big it is. Ma said a little girl like me would get knocked off my feet with a gun too big. But a good knife has no height restrictions. I climbed back out and made a show of my gun and knife to Ma.

"Now don't wander too far. And take a buddy. I think Michelle is still in the truck." With that and a nod, she went back to directing Josh on where to look for food. I walked up to the truck and knocked on the hood to pull Michelle out of her book.

"Do you want to go look in the trees for some water with me? My canteen is running a little low and I want to feel the cool forest air after the hot desert." I asked after opening the door Michelle was leaned against. She huffed annoyed at almost being knocked out of the truck.

"Aren't you a little old to need a babysitter? Just go look by yourself." She took the door out of my grip and slammed it shut. I stood on the other side of the closed door a little shocked. After some thought, I decided I really did need to fill my canteen and if Michelle wouldn't come, then there was nothing I could do about it. I shrugged and walked off into the woods closest to the truck. No one had seen a zombie since we got out of the desert a few days ago. The running theory around camp is that they can't survive in the cold so they stick to the warmer areas. I had never seen one up close since my parents came into contact with one just before the caravan found me. Ma saw me running down the road away from where my parents had been. My dad had told me to run and not look back and that's where Ma picked me up. She figured I had been running from a couple of chasers, not that I'd been running from my childhood home. I had seen a couple running along the side of the caravan through the desert. But even those were a few yards away and seemed like a movie I was watching through the window of the RV. Josh had been attacked by one at one of our gas station stops, but all I heard was the growling and then the sound of his gun going off. Pa wanted to show me the body to get me accustomed to death, but Ma said I wasn't ready for it. She told him I was too young and that my mental state hadn't fully recovered from the loss of my parents.

I wandered the woods a little looking for signs of a stream or something I could use to fill my canteen when I heard a twig snap in the distance. I stopped and looked to see if it was a deer or some wildlife, but what I saw was definitely not wildlife. It was a chaser. She stood there staring at me with one bloodshot eye, the other one was missing. Her scalp was peeled back on one side exposing her bloody skull. Her clothes were torn and dirty, and she had missing chunks of skin and muscle. She kind of leaned to one side like she was only barely standing, but the intensity in her eye told me that she was excited and on high alert. I took a slow step backward and her eye flicked to my leg watching the movement. I froze again, not sure what to do. If she was in fact a chaser, I'd never outrun her. And her face told me she didn't plan on letting me get away. I took another slow step back and she seemed to explode into action all at once. She moved faster than I could have imagined. I turned and ran in the other direction while pulling out my revolver. Ma had shown me how to use it once, but I didn't have much practice since we couldn't afford to waste the ammo. I could hear the frenzied snarls from the zombie getting closer. I screamed for help, knowing they'd never get to me in time. And just as that thought crossed my mind, I was slammed to the ground from behind. I was able to roll over and hold her neck away from me, keeping her mouth at bay. But she was stronger than me and would have her teeth in me at any moment. I tried to use my gun hand and shoot her. I got one shot off into her belly, but she didn't seem fazed at all. She clawed at my arm trying to get closer to my neck with her mouth. I struggled to pull back the hammer on the revolver but just ended up dropping it instead. I used both hands to push her away and get a little more distance, but that only lasted for a split second before she was diving at me again. I pulled out the knife and pushed it through her missing eye as she dove at me with even more force. she stopped suddenly and went limp on top of me. I pushed her off and stood above her, staring down at the face that just tried to rip me apart.

A group from the caravan, including Ma, got there a few moments later. She tried to hug me and shield me away from the sight of a dead person on the ground, but I'd already filled my brain with images of the woman lying in the dirt. That night Pa decided we should celebrate my first kill. We had a fire and cooked some deer one of the boys had shot in the forest earlier that morning. Everyone congratulated me and told me how happy they were to find me alive. Ma only scolded me a little for going into the woods by myself. But every time I looked at any of them in the face, all I saw was her. Bloodied and broken; with my knife in her empty socket and the heart locket necklace I had given her when I was 6 hanging around her neck.