There were a few bitters wandering about on my old street. We kept in a tight group to make sure nothing could surprise us as we passed my old neighbor's houses. The first car we came across was a little red firefly, with a bitter trapped inside by its seat belt. It kept trying to get out of the seat and get up, but it was starting to tear into its own skin.

The street had four cars sat dead on the street and I assumed they had already been emptied by some passerby's. About 15 bitters were scattered around empty drive ways. There were probably more on the insides of abandoned houses which was why we didn't bother at the moment to check the other houses; it would be waste of time.

I myself wouldn't dare go into any of the other houses unless I absolutely had to. If I was starving and had no food or no way of getting food, that would be the only time I would force myself to search someone else's house. It would just be weird and smell really bad if anyone or anything had ended up dying in one of them. I would rather not chance it if I didn't have to.

Paul took up the rear, and I led with Karen. Blake walked behind me, then Bev and Kye, searching for any movements coming towards us. I could feel Blake's hand on my back for a brief moment, but didn't worry about it too much.

We kept walking, a few bitters taking notice of us. They started to follow us slowly, obviously not having eaten anything in a long time. They were wandering along, stumbling over any objects in their way. Most of them were dragging their feet because their mobility had been reduced to shambling. Karen had explained that to us once when we were walking. It was another thing that they had learned during the creation of these things.

One of the bitters in particular looked familiar. I think she used to be my neighbor, Annie. The day it happened, she must have been wearing a nice light pink flowery dress, which was now stained with mud and old blood. Some of her hair looked like it had been torn out from when she was bitten to the point she turned. Half of her face was missing as well, though you could still tell who she was and used to be. Annie had been kind, and she did not deserved this. No one deserved this.

"How far?" Karen questioned and I pointed ahead then stopped, letting them pass me. I looked at Annie and sighed, going over to her. I could not leave her like this. There was no way it was right to leave the ones who you knew like this. She noticed me and growled, limping forwards. She had also been wearing a pair of  red three inch heals, and she must have broken her ankle at one point, the bone sticking out to the side. Karen and the others continued as I put her down, laying her nicely on the ground, folding her arms on her chest like someone would for a funeral.

I stepped back, my gaze focused on the body on the ground for a few moments, then turned and jogged back towards the group to catch up with them. It made me think of the way my family went, and I shook my head to keep the focus back on the situation at hand.

I had to find Taylor.

We turned the corner and went onto the school's street when I stopped the group.

Karen swore under her breath, which would have been almost impossible to hear if it wasn't so quiet. Bev gasped when she looked at the school, and Paul made his way to the front of the group when he looked ahead and almost threw up. He turned away and gagged. He leaned forwards to place his hands on his knees as he began to wheeze and cough.

In the not-so-far-away school yard, there was a pile of dead bodies piled against the chain link fence around the school. When I mean piled, I mean that the bodies were almost falling over the other side onto the sidewalk, and they were piled up all around the fence. The entire school border that was the fence had a second fence made out of the dead, all around the school yard. I started forwards when Karen put a hand on my shoulder stopping me.

"You really want to do this still?" she questioned and I nodded. I breathed in through my nose and covered my mouth. The smell was gut wrenching and made my head hurt.

"I need to know." I said, regaining my composure. I then started to walk towards the school once again.

The rest of the group followed a few paces behind, not sure what to think of the dead bodies across the street against the fence. Some of them still couldn't handle the smell or the sight of that many bodies. Bev had tears in her eyes and Kye had taken a moment to throw up in someone's yard away from us. I strolled across the street, not having to check for traffic anymore. It felt odd and I still wanted to look over my shoulder to make sure I wasn't going to be hit by a car.

I looked at the portables which were once extra classrooms added to a school with too many kids. They laid in ruins in the school yard and I began to question what had happened. I assumed there must have been a fire or something. There were bodies under the boards that had once stood as an outer wall of a portable. One part of the fence in particular caught my eye. There were no bodies around that one part. It was the gate. It was unlocked and there were no bodies blocking it. It was almost as if they marked a clear entrance.

Blake matched my pace as I continued forwards. I walked up to the gate and pulled it open, unhooking the latch as I did so. I looked around the school yard. There wasn't a semi-alive bitter in the school yard.

I walked into the school yard, which had been swept bare. The bodies only lined the inner fence, surrounding the school, but the school yard itself had no scattered bodies, which meant someone had taken the time to move the bodies strategically. And by the looks of it, whatever they did, worked. There were really not as many bitters as there should be, and I think it was the stench of the dead around the fence that kept them away.

"Who do you think did this?" Kye questioned and I shook my head, shrugging.

"Whoever is inside that building." Blake said, pointing to one of the windows. There was a sudden movement behind the window and then a light went on and off. I shook my head, thinking I had only imagined it, when I looked at the others who looked at me.

They had seen it too.

"Do we leave?" Bev questioned and I shook my head, walking towards the front doors.

"We're going inside, I need to know if she's here or not. But there are other survivors and we aren't the only ones left. That has to mean something." I said, standing in front of the door.

"Do we knock?" Blake questioned and I did before asking if anyone else thought different. There was silence on the either side of the door. I knocked again, but I knocked louder than the last.

The door opened slowly, a gun nozzle poking out directed at my face

"What do you want?" questioned a young woman's voice.

"Is Taylor here?" I questioned and the nozzle went back in, the door slamming in my face. I turned to look at Blake when I heard a bunch of things happen on the other side. A chain hitting the ground, a few locks clicking, then a little squealing sound.

The door opened with a low groan as it swung outwards. Kye and Bev moved out of the way so that the door could open with ease. The first thing that caught my eye when she opened the door were the crutches. This young woman was missing the bottom half of her left leg.

"Come in, quickly." She said, then took her crutches under her arms and moved back so we could all come in. We all got inside when Paul helped her close the door, locking it up in many places to keep it shut. A minute of silence passed and we all stared at each other. She was glaring at me specifically, looking at me up and down.

The first hallway where we stood was lit by candle light, the small flames flickering every so often. There was some light coming in from the very top of windows, but most of them were covered over by wood or by cardboard to keep the bitters from coming inside or from others seeing the activity going on inside. The lady started to hobble off to the left, down a long, dark hallway. She continued and I motioned for the group to follow. As we followed her, her crutches clicked against the ground and echoed off the walls every time they touched the ground. She seemed to be adjusting to the crutches, but it made me wonder what had happened to the bottom part of her leg.

"How do you know Rain?" The lady, Carol, questioned me as I matched her slow pace next to her.

"You mean Taylor? A couple months ago, she lived in my basement. She goes by the nickname I gave her?" I questioned and Carol nodded. She went up to a classroom door and knocked on it. I looked at the door. This had once been my grade two class. Miss Gray taught us in this room, and was very particular with how she ran her classroom, even though we were a bunch of six and seven year old children. Her name was still nailed to the door at the top, but it had been blacked out with a marker.

"I'm busy. Come back later." A familiar voice called out, their voice strained.

"Rain it's important, I-" Carol was saying when I cut her off.

"Taylor?" I said, when Carol looked at me with wide eyes. It was silent for a few seconds, then there was a lot of shuffling. The lock on the door clicked then swung open inwardly. Taylor stood there, half dressed. She wore a long white shirt that came down to her mid thigh and her hair was up in a messy bun.

"Lisa!" Taylor exclaimed running out of the room. She jumped into my arms, wrapping herself around me as I hugged her back. I held her for a few moments and then I set her down. She backed up and gave me a once over.

"I thought I was hearing things but I knew, deep down inside me, that you'd make it! Where's Kristy and Mark?" She questioned and I shook my head, my heart aching at the sound of their names. Taylor gave me another hug, whispering sorry into my ear. She backed away then looked at the others.

"Is this your group?" Taylor questioned and I nodded, shrugging.

"Half of it." I said and she tilted her head to the side, the bun on her head flopping over with the movement.

"Where's the rest?" She questioned and I pointed to the locket necklace around my neck. Her eyes widened, then she went back into the room, dragging me inside. She slammed the door shut on the rest of my group who stood outside, probably wondering what the hell was going on. A young man sat on a mattress in the far corner of the room, reading a book. He had a blanket over the bottom half of his body, but he wasn't wearing a shirt. I narrowed my eyes at Taylor and she shrugged, smiling.

"I got bored, plus I can't get pregnant." She said, pulling on a pair of shorts, and changed her shirt. She threw the shirt she had been wearing at the man who was deep into a book. He looked up at her and glared for a second, then went back to reading. She fixed her hair and pulled on some combat boots.

"We need to get the rest of the group back here before sun down." She said, and I looked at her completely confused.

"Why are you rushing? Ruban and Percy are taken care of." I said and she nodded, standing back up, then opened the door back up.

"There's another reason I left, and another reason why I left Luca and Libra there." She said, then looked back at me. She opened her room door and walked between Blake and Paul who both looked at her with a confusion clear on their faces. I followed her out into the hallway and continued to follow her as she walked with a purpose. I motioned for the group to follow and they did. We made our way back towards the front door. The group followed us as we chatted.

"Libra?" Bev questioned and Taylor nodded, turning to look at her.

"The pup. It's mother is infected, and it travels around the city with sprinters looking for food during the day and our old house is where they stay at night. It's kinda like their home base." She said when we unlocked the front door to the school, walking outside. There was about an hour before dusk, but that was almost pushing it. The group followed us out, Karen matching Taylor and I's pace.

"What are sprinters?" Karen questioned, and we jogged towards my old house.

"It's been a while since you've been back in town, hasn't it?" Taylor questioned, shaking her head, her brown wavy hair flipping around her face. "The bitters, only some of them though, are starting to mutate, taking on a faster and stronger type of bitter, which I call sprinters. These are not your ordinary bitters either. They look almost human, but their skin has started to peel so you can tell that they're not human, and they hunt. They hunt humans in packs. Which was weird when I first encountered one. It's group had set a trap. A trap. They may not be able to speak, but they're fast, and smart." Taylor said, and slowed down, the group stopping. She went and crouched behind a vehicle.

"Another weird thing about them, is that they don't eat or kill their meal right away. They only injure it, then take it back to their base for later, which I find really weird." She said, then we ran to the house, the sun starting to set. 

We walked into the house, grabbing everything we could. Maggy and Jack gave us an odd look, but seemed to get the memo and started packing. Taylor gave a little nod at Cindy and she shook her head. Luca and Libra came bounding towards me and I patted them both on the heads. I then remembered my father's safe. I went to his room and pushed his bed aside. I pulled the boards out of place and reached in to put the code in the safe was. I clicked it open and pulled the door up. I looked in and dug through the papers.

The boxes of ammo and the gun were gone.

"Looking for this?" Taylor questioned and I turned to look at her. She was holding the gun out and I nodded.

"Here, I'll trade you." I said, pulling the gun from out of the back of my pants.

"Where did you get that one?" She questioned and I shrugged, smiling.

"Found it." I said and she laughed. We swapped guns and I hid it back under my shirt. The two guns were very similar and I assumed the ammo was either the same or very similar. They were both from the same maker, so I just assumed.

"We'll trade ammo when we get back." She said and I nodded.

We went outside and quickly packed the vehicles. We pulled away from the house, driving back and parking in the old school's parking lot. Something shook my bones when we arrived.

Someone had screamed really loudly, nearby too. We all got out of the vehicles when Taylor went straight for the door. The scream happened again just as we got to the steps of the front entrance and Kye gasped.

"Cassie." He said, and looked at Paul. Before Paul could move, the guy from Taylor's room grabbed him and pulled him inside. Kye was about to scream no, when another man cupped his hand over Kye's mouth as he screamed. Taylor stood in the doorway and ushered us into the school. The one man dropped Kye to the ground, Bev went over and kneeled down next to him. The men locked the doors when Paul got up, anger fuming from his eyes.

"We can't just leave her!" He said, and Taylor shook her head.

"She's been marked by one of them, and I will have no part in putting you guys and my own group in harms way. You're safe here, and they don't know we're here because of the bodies surrounding the school. You'd have to smell like a bitter, even to try and get close to that house again." She said, then there was a pounding at the door.

"Please! Let me in!"

It was Cassie.

There was a thump, and what sounded like a body hitting the ground. I heard the crunch of bones breaking. I cringed, clenching my hands. Kye had his hand over Bev's mouth as she cried, and Paul bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.

We were silent like that for five minutes.

The guy from Taylor's room looked out the window and nodded.

"They're gone Rain, let's get everyone settled into a room. We'll introduce them all to the others tomorrow."  The man from her room said and she smiled, nodding at him. He smiled, then went back to their room.

"We don't have many classrooms left, but we'll pair you up to sleep in the classrooms we have left. Kye and Bev, room 253. Carol will show you where." Taylor said, then turned to watch the men walk off.

"You two, uh... " She said, pointing at the old couple. I whispered their names to her and she nodded.

"Maggy and Jack, you'll share room 254 and Kreston will take you there. Blake and Lisa will stay in room 256, which is three down from mine. Cindy, you will replace Carol's old roommate and stay with her. Paul, you'll bunk with Kreston unless you want to spend the night with me?" Taylor suggested, winking at him. Paul shrugged and shook his head.

"I'll spend my first night on watch, thank you very much. I would like to see what prison's like without a bunk buddy first." He said and I smiled, lowering my head to try and hide it. We all dispersed, walking off in different directions. Blake and I got to our room and went in, locking it behind us.

It was a small classroom, which contained a queen sized mattress laid on the floor pushed up against the far wall. There were dark blue sheets and a comforter that were folded up on the mattress. I smiled and walked ahead, making the bed for Blake and I. I put my bag down on an empty desk and frowned. I forgot to get a spare deodorant from the store. Damn. I laid down on the wirey mattress and rolled onto my side to stare at the wall. Blake came over and hopped onto the mattress next to me, grabbed me from behind and pulled me close to him. I smiled and whispered goodnight. He kissed the side of my forehead and I closed my eyes, letting sleep take hold for the first time in forever.