Moisture slide down both their necks as they breathed the cabin scented air. Dust drifted in and out of a ray of light flowing in from outside into the rather dark room. David intently watched the window to their front and the door to their right. With Alex crouching right next to him, they were both hidden behind an overturned couch. It had been fifteen painful minutes of quietly breathing and waiting in tedious agony. Their joints were beginning to ache from staying motionless for so long. They could hear them rubbing against the outside of the cabin occasionally coming across the window casting a long shadow.

There's so many, Alex thought to herself.

Fuck me. This is my fault.

Her face was dirty, but you could still make out all the freckles on her pale skin. Her hair was tucked back with a few red strands falling on her young face with the rest of it dropping down just above her shoulders. She had a single chain link bracelet on her left arm, her only extra accessory. She had it her entire life and she refused to ever take it off. She tilted her small head and gazed up at David wondering what he was thinking. He was especially focused on the door now, contemplating something, trying to think a way out of this situation. She shifted her weight to take the pain off one of her knees, doing it slowly making sure not to creak the floorboards.

She felt guilty. She had got them into situations like this a lot lately. She continued to look up at David. His face was dirtier than hers and showing more age. Rough skin between the lines on his face showed what kind of life he had lived. A hard one. This was shown even more by the scar he wore on the left side of his face running from his temple all the way to his chin. His black hair had grown past his eyebrows slightly covering his brown eyes. At the tips of his hairs beads of sweat had begun to collect. He seemed so tired, but he was able to stay focused and alert. Not like Alex who could be easily distracted and wasn't as much a veteran survivor. How or why he put up with her was beyond Alex.

It's so hot, she thought to herself. It was the end of the day but the summer heat hadn't let up quite yet. She flipped some hair out of hair face and lifted her hand to brush off some sweat collecting on the bottom of her chin, but stopped as another long shadow from the window crossed the room. It passed and she brushed off her chin and the rest of her face with her t-shirt sleeve. A plain taste had built up in her mouth, she awkwardly moved her tongue around trying to avoid it, but she gave up and just ignored it. Becoming more impatient she began to think to herself again. They're not going away, maybe we could...

"Run." David breathed in a low rumbling voice interrupting her train of thought.

Alex looked up at him, confused. "What?" She asked, her voice squeaking a bit after not talking for so long.

"I've got a plan... but you have to run to the woods... east of this cabin. Can you do that?" His voice so commanding and clear even though he was only whispering.

"But what are you going to do?" She squeaked again.

David paused. He rubbed the edge of his bald face with his index finger and his thumb before running them down to his chin and off his face bringing both hands together.

"Do you trust me?" he said looking down at her face to face. She was staring back at him with widened green eyes. She looked afraid and not wanting to leave his side. But despite her fears she did trust him.

"I trust you." she whispered. Nervously she started biting her lip.

David positioned his large body to fully face hers and make better eye contact with her.

"Then run... through the door, i'll meet you out there... Now! Go!" David said yelling the last part at her.

Startled by the yell Alex broke eye contact and scrambled to her feet. She swiftly made her way from out behind the couch, through the room and towards the door. She through it open and ran out of the dim cabin as the world opened up to a big green field with a dimming blue sky. Almost immediately after coming outside she heard two gunshots from inside the cabin. But only two.

David must have fired a couple shots to keep them distracted, she thought to her self as she kept running.

The grass was wet against her ankles and the eastern summer air was humid causing her skin to collect moisture as she ran. Her legs were numb from being near motionless to suddenly sprinting. She looked towards the green tree line 200 yards away. It seemed much further as she tried to carry her 13 year old body.

"Come on, you can make it" she said coaxing herself.

Back at the house David had hastily closed the door and thrown the couch against it. Taking the butt of his gun he broke open the window grabbing the attention of them from the outside. He stood back waiting for them to crawl in; he only had fifteen rounds and a knife but he anticipated they would only be able to come in one or two at a time. He waisted two rounds into the roof when Alex started running to keep them focused on where he was verses where she was going. He readied himself standing in a fighting position back from the broken window. He wiped the sweat stinging eyes with the back of his hand and he flipped his hair out of his eyebrows throwing even more sweat from his head. The first one crawled in and landed on the ground. Shattered glass from the window stuck out of its body reflecting the light coming in from outside. David gripped his knife. It stood up giving a groan and started coming at him rapidly. David waited for it to get close enough then "THWAK".

Alex was 100 yards away from the tree line now. Her heart was pounding from the exertion of energy and adrenaline. Gripping her fists she took one quick glance back at the cabin. She gasped and looked forward, then looked back again.

"Fuck, no, no."

Some of the infected had chased her despite the gunshots David had fired. She took another quick glance back. They're catching up to me, she realized. She tried to think quickly. If I can make it to those trees I can climb up one, surely they couldn't climb right? She felt the hairs on the back of her head raise as she could hear the stomping closing in behind her. Her stomach had sick feeling of panic.

"No, no this isn't happening." she whimpered.

She stayed focused though trying to pump her thin arms faster, trying to keep her hectic breathing steady. 20 yards away she examined the tree line and picked out the tree she was going to attempt to climb. Wet hysteria running down her face and neck she was already running as fast as she could but she tried to push her body to run faster. The stomping behind her had gotten even louder and raised her adrenaline. 30 feet from the base of the tree she had picked out she prepared herself to jump up to a low hanging branch. She threw her arms back to jump thinking maybe she had made it; but she felt something painfully yank the back of her hair stopping her body from leaving the ground. "NOOOO!" She screamed as she was ripped to the Earth.

David was killing them one at a time. Saving his bullets, he used his knife to swiftly stab their necks and then push them aside to let them bleed out on the floor. It was becoming too much though. He had killed 8 or 9 of them when they started to come in faster.

"All right here we go." He hastily breathed.

He started shooting his gun, headshot after headshot not missing a single time. They were coming in two to three at a time now; he fired a dozen bullets. Then they stopped coming in, there was none left. The room smelled like flesh and rotten eggs from all the bodies. Surely there must have been more. He thought. Approaching the window cautiously gun in hand he looked outside to find nothing. He dropped his arms and relaxed his large shoulders.

"I guess there was less than I thought." he mumbled. "Ahhhhhhhh!" he heard a sharp distant scream from outside. It echoed through the field like a horror movie.

"Oh no" He breathed as he came to his senses. He felt panic strike his heart as he sprinted out the door.

Alex kicked and clawed for her life, she scrambled backwards with both arms and legs throwing her back up against a tree. One of them lunged at her giving a screech. She caught it by the shoulders and tried to shove it back quickly with her legs but it was bigger than her and she was only able to hold it in place. The other one lunged at her side. She was completely panicked as she struggled to hold one in place not knowing what to do about the other one. An intense wave of terror washed over her as she watched it bite down full force sinking its teeth into her shoulder.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" she screamed painfully.

It dug in deeper shaking its jaws back and forth until she could feel teeth grinding against the nub of her shoulder bone.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!" she bloodily screamed louder and sharper.

The pain was agonizing and overwhelming and she couldn't take it. Desperately, she used her free hand and dug her fingernails into the throat of the one she was keeping back with her legs. She dug in as blood and puss squirted from its neck and in one quick jerk of her arm she pulled down hard. Blood erupted everywhere as the monstrous thing screeched bleeding out and covering her in its mess.

The other one un-sunk it's teeth from her shoulder and tried to snap at her neck. She pushed the one fattily injured one away, fell to the side of the tree and rolled on her back. Trying to use both arms and legs she crawled backwards a bit but it jumped right on her snapping at her neck. She pushed it up with her arms but her shoulder hurt too much and one arm gave out. Her elbow bent as her bicep and triceps struggled to keep the weight above her. It was close enough now to nip the skin on her neck with it's teeth. Her shoulder hurt so much she didn't even feel the pain of the small bites. Warm blood ran down the sides of Alex's neck. She dug her head into the ground trying to get as far away from its snapping teeth as possible even if it was just an inch. She desperately tried to kick the thing off but it was moving to much to get a clean swing in. She felt hot drool drip down on her from its mouth. It's arms clawing at her sides leaving long scratch marks up and down her ribs.

Then, almost like a dream, everything seemed to be in slow motion. A flash of bitter cold chills enveloped her body. Her ears began to ring as she stopped hearing everything else. She felt dizzy and she could feel her consciousness fading from her. Her arm was about to give out from exhaustion and she could not grip the thing with her legs alone.

This is it. There's no way out of this, Alex thought. Visions and memories flashed in her head. She thought about everyone she had ever met and everywhere she had ever been. She thought about the mom she never met. She looked at her chain link bracelet just underneath the monster she was failing to keep up. Mom. She thought about David, how he would react when he found her like this. What he'll feel when he finds the mangled remains of her body? The last words she had said to him rang in her head. I trust you. Her eyes started to water.

She closed her eyes right before what would surely be a fatal last chomp, ready to stop fighting. But then "BAM". A gunshot. The thing went limp and fell on top of her, dead.

David ran as hard as he could. He had seen most of what happened. He had to watch painfully as she was bite as he ran so he could get with in range so to not shoot her instead of it.

"Alex!" he yelled desperately.

No response. He feared the worst. He ran hard, his 6 foot 180 pound body tumbling towards her like a train. He didn't know what to expect. The thing still laid dead on top of her. She hadn't tried to roll it off. He slowed down as he finally got to her side readying himself for the worst. He pulled the dead thing off of her and took a sigh of relief to see her breathing. He looked at her face; she was in a complete state of shock. She looked up at him, opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

"Oh no" David said looking at her shoulder. He also noticed the small bite marks on the skin of her neck. An inch deeper on any of those bites and that would have been it.

"Come on we need to go somewhere and get you cleaned up." he said a bit panicked. Alex didn't react. She was in a world of her own. A state of delirium. David snapped his fingers in front of her face.

"Come on we need to move" He said hoarsely.

Still no reaction. She looked like she had just been threw a war, completely drenched in blood and sweat, clothes tattered. Her body was shaking a little bit. David couldn't wait for her to get worse. The sun had reached the tree line in the west part of the field. It was going to get dark quick. He thought about going back into the cabin now that they were all dead. But he needed water to clean her out and food so her body could recover, the cabin had neither of those things. David needed to take her somewhere else, and fast. He put he's right hand on her arm, she was cold to the touch. There's no way she can walk right now.

"All right... come on I'll carry you." David said with a somber tone.

He picked Alex up gingerly placing one of her arms over his broad shoulder and carried her into the woods.