The frigid air hurt my ears, each step I took was matched with a breath of hot air pushing out into the air in front of me. The snow crunched with every step, it was almost hypnotizing, it was the only noise I could hear.
My surroundings were covered in white, the winter was relentless this year. Feet upon feet of snow covered everything. Navigating through the streets and any terrain was extremely difficult. But that probably explains why the camp sent me to go, I was the only one that had the best chance of finding a camp of survivors that was spotted further east from ours.
My eyes were peeled and darting from object to object. There was no movement, I felt like the only one on the road, which was good. The last thing I needed was a run in with a walker or even worse, a group of runners. They were large in numbers, and they only got worse as time went on.
Since the infection of the country it had been seven months, I felt like the infection was part of my life at this point. At first it was absolutely horrifying, people ripped to shreds by other people. Families were torn apart emotionally as they had to kill their infected family because there was no one else to do it for them. The government had completely abandoned us and they could all be dead for all we know as citizens of the infection.
I shook the terrible memories and thoughts from my head, the camp was just up ahead. I didn't trust anyone but my group of people, people were savages everywhere, nobody was afraid to kill anybody anymore. I decided to take a turn and go off the road, the snow was up to my knees. I felt myself growing tired as I pushed my legs through the heavy, thick snow.
After a few minutes of struggling and almost losing my boot, I got to a spot where I could look the camp over. It definitely looked like there was other survivors living there. A fire was going steadily and the smoke climbed towards the sky like the reaching arms of the undead. After a few seconds of looking, a person came out of a run down house. They walked over to the fire, they were trying to warm up.
I crouched down and forced myself to lay in the snow. I rolled onto my side and slid my bag off of my back. There was binoculars in my bag, I grabbed them and set my sights on the camp.
"Where did you go?" I said out loud to myself when I realized that the person was now gone.
I had only taken my eyes off for about five seconds, a wave of nervousness washed over me. I looked the camp over rapidly through the binoculars, there was no movement anywhere. I felt something crawl up my spine when the glint of glass shined through a window. I brought my binoculars over to the shining object. I felt my heart drop immediately when I focused on what it actually was.
The bullet hit me faster then I could hear the gun fire. A man with a rifle took a shot right at me, no hesitation. The snow in front of me kicked up, covering my face in freezing liquid. I brought a hand up to get it off, but as soon as my hand came down another shot rang out. This time the sniper hit his mark, the bullet hit me in the shoulder. Hot, white pain ripped through my body, I let out a grunt.
I held my shoulder and started to roll down the hill so he couldn't take another shot at me. I noticed that my bag was still at the top of the hill. I pushed myself to get back up and go for the bag. Both of my legs felt weak. But I still made it back up to sling the bag back over my shoulder. Taking one last look, I noticed that the camp looked alive now. There had to have been about five to seven men running around, looking towards me.
I felt my blood turn ice cold when they all started to make their way towards me, guns in hand. The sniper in the window saw that I came back and took another shot. He missed this time and I dove down the hill before he got another chance. As soon as I hit the ground, the pile of snow found it's way inside my coat. The coldness took my breath away as I ran for the road.
The sudden change in snow levels made me fall, both my knees scraped on the road. I picked myself up and started to run to my best ability. My shoulder was throbbing and every time I'd look behind me, I'd notice the trail of blood I was leaving. There was too much blood, I could feel myself getting lightheaded.
I shook myself awake and kept pushing my body to go further. But I knew I was in trouble when my right leg suddenly tried to give out from underneath me. I stopped for a minute to catch my breath, that's when three bullets ripped by me. When I turned I saw multiple men aiming their weapons my way, their muzzles were flashing. Bullet after bullet passed by me, I was just waiting for one to hit me in the back.
There was a street lined with houses to my right. After thinking for a half a second, I decided to run down that way. One of the houses had to be unlocked, I needed to hide. Each house looked promising but I knew they could follow my blood trail. I decided to make my way to the biggest house, I felt like my chances were way higher.
My legs almost didn't allow me to get up the front porch steps, my hands scrapped on the ice when I tripped at the top. I picked myself up once more and almost broke the front door down falling into it. My blood splattered on the gorgeous blue door. My hands were numb, I barely felt myself turning the handle. Looking down to see what I was actually doing, I realized quickly that the door was locked.
My heart started to beat extremely fast, the men weren't on the street yet but I could hear yelling. They sounded like they were all over the place, they were spreading out to find me. This only made me feel better about my chances, I knew I could take a couple at a time if I had the advantage of surprise.
I stopped to think for a second, that's when I had an idea. I had thick gloves on so I walked over to the window on the right side of the front door. Cocking my arm back, I let loose on the window and busted it out. My gloves didn't protect me from the break, a piece of glass stuck of out my hand when I pulled it back towards me. The pain was terrible, I felt myself getting woozy from the pain of both wounds. I pushed my back against the house as I bit my coat, the glass needed to come out. I grabbed onto the piece with my frozen hands and pulled as hard as I could. This made me see white, I could feel the glass sliding across the nerves in my hand.
After watching the bloody glass hit the snow below me, I went into full focus. It was flight or fight, I decided to fight and run like hell when I had the chance. In my bag was also a large combat knife that I had found in my adventures. It was in some house my group and I were looting, some nutcase that believed that the apocalypse was going to happen soon had it. He prepared his entire house for it only to get eaten and found in his front yard as half a body.
My dominant hand was injured badly enough to the point where I couldn't hold the knife. I gripped it as tight as I could in my left, my confidence was dropping quickly. I made my way back down the front porch stairs and walked to the house opposite of me. As I slowly made my way, I was looking over my shoulder towards the men chasing me. They still weren't there, but I didn't take the time to contemplate it, I knew they were seconds from coming around the corner.
I walked around the back of the house, there was two cellar doors. My feet dragged as I walked towards it, they looked frozen shut. After giving the doors a pretty good pull, I found out that they were frozen. Dropping to one knee, my combat knife chipped away at the ice nicely. Chunks and shavings of ice were falling like rain at the speed I was going. After clearing all the ice, I stood to give it another good pull. They popped open with a hard swing, I stopped them just in time before they could hit something and give me away.
I made my way down the steps, closing the doors behind me. It was dark immediately, I couldn't see anything. My hands reached out into the darkness, there was nothing but empty blackness in front me. I took a few more steps and almost dropped in fear, my fingers touched a coat, it was solid. My left hand tightened even more on the knife, I was crouched down waiting for the person to attack me. They never came, I couldn't even hear anything but my own breath.
After gaining a little courage, I stood back up to see what I had touched. At first I couldn't find it with my hand, which only freaked me out. That's when it hit my hand without me moving, but it wasn't normal movement, it was swinging.
"What the fuck?" I said to myself.
I reached around and started to feel brick walls, they were cold and damp. I started to feel like I was suffocating in the darkness as fear clawed at my throat. My hands started to move frantically along the brick walls. They found a door handle, I felt a sense of relief and popped the door open. The doorway revealed a staircase leading up towards another closed door, but light was shining underneath the door up the stairs.
My feet carried me up the stairs, every other step made a stair squeak. I was about four steps from the top when I loud creak came from underneath my feet, my body froze in place. My pulse was beating a million miles per hour. The house was completely silent except for the thud of my heart coming out of my chest. After a few seconds, I decided that I was alone in the house and I opened the door.
I was in some kind of kitchen by the looks of it. I shut the door softly behind me and that's when I noticed a note on the door. It was a letter, it was signed by some families father. It was a suicide note, the object swinging in the basement wasn't just a coat. My stomach flipped upside down from the words on the note, it was the saddest thing I had ever read. From the looks of it, the man had killed his family upstairs and hung himself in the basement in shame. I brought a hand up to my face to prevent myself from getting sick.
The shock factor disappeared when I looked to my right and saw somebody walking outside. The men were here, they were searching still. I crept up to the window and peaked my head around the corner to look outside. There were three men at the house across from me, they were pointing their guns into the window I had broke. They were falling for my trick, two of the men started to crawl through the window. The third man turned and stood guard with his rifle.
After a few more seconds of making sure that those men were looking for me in the house I decided to make my move. I pushed myself to dart back down the basement stairs and made my way towards the cellar doors that led outside. I ran into the swinging corpse again but I didn't have time to care, I needed to beat those two outside.
I was blinded as I went from complete darkness to a total whiteout outside. The knife in my hand felt warm, I looked down to realize that it was my blood.
"Shit." I said out loud.
That's when a guy came around the corner, but before he could even get a word out I was already charging at him. My knife moved swiftly and in a quick upwards movement, it sunk into the man's throat. He got wide-eyed and opened his mouth to yell, my hand was already over it before he could. I let him fall to the ground silently, he had a small pistol on him. I ejected the clip, there was six rounds, not including the one all ready to go in the chamber.
I slid the knife back into my bag and forced myself to grip the pistol. I rounded the house slowly and looked towards the house across the street. The man standing guard was still standing in the same spot, he had a lit cigarette in his hand. His rifle was leaning against the house, he didn't stand a chance.
I broke my cover and started to walk across the road, he noticed me right away. As he spun to grab his rifle I fired every single round at the man. About five of them hit and the other two just shredded through the house. He fell backwards dead, I tried to move as fast as I could towards him with my injuries.
I grabbed both of his feet and slid him off the porch, the two inside had to of heard the gunshots, I needed to get rid of him. My body begged for me to stop moving as I made my way back up the steps. The only exit the two men had was the broken window unless they took the time to unlock the front door. I was hidden between both up against the wall with the man's rifle. Before I knew it, the first head popped through the broken window, I set the cold barrel on the side of his head and fired.
"Holy shit!" Someone yelled from inside.
I slid the bolt-action mechanism to load another round into the rifle and aimed it steadily at the window, waiting for him to peek out. He never came, but two men on the road did. I aimed the rifle and fired a shot at one of the men, it hit right on. The other man fell backwards in surprise and slipped as he tried to get himself back up. I loaded another round and let it fly, it sunk into his chest.
As I was loading another to fight the man inside, bullets and splinters flew by me. The man inside was firing his gun at the wall, trying to hit me with a lucky shot. After one flew by my face I decided it was time to move. I tried to run off the porch but my legs gave out, I fell down every step. The pain shooting through my body was tremendous. I knew I was on my last leg, but something kept me going. The rifle was caked in snow, I frantically started to brush off the snow but the man inside was already peeking through the window to try to finish me off.
The rifle hit the ground and misfired, but I didn't care, I was moving towards the two dead men on the road. I saw a pistol lying in the road, my eyes were so focused that everything around me was blur. There was no noise, no bullets ripping by me, just the thought of that gun being in my hands.
I fell to the ground when I reached the gun, but my hands wouldn't grab it. All of sudden I dropped to my knees. I couldn't get up, my vision was turning black. One of my eyes were completely out of the question, there was no picture in my right eye, the left one was on it's way. As I brought my hands up to wipe my eyes, hoping it would work, the sound of gun went off one last time. The bullet ripped through the left side of my chest. Blood flew out of me, it seemed like it was all happening in slow motion. I fell to my hands but they didn't catch me, I rocked my face off the icy road.
As I rolled to my back to accept death, I watched the flakes of snow coming down. They hit my face gently, each one melting immediately. I couldn't do anything, my body was numb, I was done. That's when the man that shot me walked up to my body. He aimed his pistol at me, but he didn't shoot.
"You're dead anyways." He said, spitting on my body.
He started to walk away, leaving me to die. That's when I thought about the camp, how my wife and child weren't going to have anyone to protect them tonight. But that still wasn't enough to bring me back, my eyes fell back into my head.
