Story Unwritten

I stand. The wind blows my hair, and I turn to look at the others.

“You ready?” Tyler asks. His voice is strong, but his grey eyes betray his fear.

I nod, and he slings his rifle over his shoulder. We walk to where we can see the zombies. A large crowd of them has gathered around a pair of bodies, and more are joining them by the minute. I catch a glimpse of metal glinting in the setting sun, one of the bodies must be wearing armor. We move closer, crouching behind trees and bushes, until we get close enough to see who it is standing in the middle of so many zombies. It's impossible to tell from this distance, but I'm confident that it's her.

We're close enough now that she'll probably hear us soon. The woods end abruptly at a dirt road that leads straight to our settlement, and she's standing right next to the road with her back facing us. I take out my knife and hand it to Tyler. He takes it silently, looking me in the eyes as he takes it. It's not a question; we've been friends long enough for him to know when I'm asking him for a favor without saying anything at all.

I step out from behind the last tree on our side of the road and whistle loudly as I run forward towards her. As soon as she hears me, she turns around and starts running back towards our territory. She gets about 5 feet before being mobbed by zombies - each one trying to bite her at once in their lust for flesh and blood - but she manages to fight most of them off until reaching the wall where she's met by Tyler who kills most of them with his rifle before they even have time to react. I arrive shortly after him and help finish off the survivors while he tends to her wounds with bandages from his backpack. She doesn't say anything during this process, just sits there staring into nothingness while Tyler works frantically at patching up her many cuts and scrapes.

Finally satisfied with his work, he turns away from her and looks at me with a grim expression on his face that I know means "we need guns". So we go back through the woods with her following behind us like a lost dog, then inside our walls where we give her food and water while informing her that she is free to leave whenever she wants because we don't imprison people here if they haven't tried to kill us first (it's happened). Then we send her on her way so that we can discuss what we just saw with the council.