“We need to go, and make sure these damn things don’t follow us. Anyone got a match?”
Here we go again thought Kim.
“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Elizabeth.
“Boyd, gimme some of that whiskey I saw you stash into your backpack. We’re going to burn this camp to the ground with those bastards inside it.”
“What?!” Elizabeth and Ronnie echoed in unison.
“Kim and mystery man, concentrate your fire on the left and right flanks. We’ll bottleneck ‘em straight into the gate there. Boyd, come over here with me. I want the rest of you to find some to start tearing pieces of clothing.”
Without hesitation, everyone followed Will’s orders. Everyone except Ronnie and Elizabeth. The zombies were yards outside the front gate.
Boyd was dumping the whiskey bottles out of his backpack onto the ground. Will fished a lighter out of his pocket and started opening the bottles.
“What the hell are you thinking?” Ronnie protested. “This is a stable, defendable position right outside the city. Leaving here would be suicide.”
“Staying would be suicide,” Will said, ripping off a strip of Ronnie’s shirt.
“Hey!”
“I don’t know who you think you are stranger, but you can’t come in here and start barking orders after you just showed up.”
Will ignored them, and ripped the strips into four pieces, one for each bottle.
“Alright,” he announced, “get your shit and lets go.”
Kim, the mystery man, and the armless man ran over, each grabbing a whisky bottle. Boyd picked up his now empty backpack and made off for the rear of the camp.
Ronnie went to Anna, who had finished packing their things in two suitcases.
“Come on baby, we’re leaving apparently.”
“I’m not going anywhere. This spot is perfect. Don’t like him give you orders like that honey.” Elizabeth kissed Ronnie.
“Maybe he’s right,” he uttered under his breath.
“Come on, we are leaving!” Will called out. Ronnie turned and saw everyone was in the rear of the camp, and the mystery man was pushing tables out of the way for an escape. Ronnie grabbed Anna by the arm and started running.
The zombies were at the car gate, and were already starting to push them out of the way, and climbing over them.
“I’m staying,” Elizabeth yelled. “You won’t burn the place down if I stay here.”
“It’s too late for that, they’re here!” Yelled the old man.
“Damn it Elizabeth, please.” Ronnie called out to her, he tried to run for her but Boyd grabbed him, and held him back.
“It’s now or never, throw!” Will called out.
He, Kim, the old man, and mysterious stranger all threw their flaming molotov’s towards the camp, and the surrounding woods.
“NOOOOO!” Ronnie yelled out.
The rest was all a flash for Kim. She vaguely remembers the stranger and Boyd wrestling with Ronnie, and the camp going up in flames, and even Elizabeth tripping as she tried to make a last-minute escape. She also remembered hitting Ronnie in the back of the neck as he broke free and tried to shoot Will.
The group was now on the move, minus one, through the woods behind the camp. The fire quickly spread behind them, as well as the smell of burning flesh. Ahead of them, the forest thickened, and they all wondered where they could settle down now.
The group found a place to catch their breath. It wasn’t Will preference, he wanted to push on, but it was forced upon him by a massive swap in the middle of the thick woods.
Ronnie was still unconscious.
For the first time Will became aware of a little girl, huddled up in a little ball, crying her eyes out by the sound of it. In all the confusion and death, he hadn’t noticed her before.
He approached her.
"I'm so sorry. I uh… I never got your name."
"My name? You want my name?" She didn’t look up at him, staying in her ball.
"Um… yes."
The girl finally looks him in the eye, with something beyond bitterness. It was hatred, pure and unadulterated hatred. The same look Kim once gave him, all those months ago.
"My name is Anna, and you just killed my mother."
It was practically a cold slap to the face. Here he was thinking he saved the day with only one casualty and here was Anna blaming him for her stupid mother’s death.
“Look kid, I’m gonna say the same thing to your father whenever he wakes up. Your mother died because she was being carless, and not following orders. She has no one to blame, you have no one to blame but her.”
“How can you be so cruel? She was doing what she thought was right and you sentenced her to death.”
“I don’t need another lecture one what’s right and what’s wrong I just need you to follow my orders. Christ, you’re worse than Kim.
Kim, meanwhile, was just sitting in the back of the crowd taking it in. Elizabeth’s death hadn’t really hit her yet, she was still trying to take everything in.
Enough to hear the screams.
Enough to feel that same pain again.
“Damn it Will,” she screamed, “you and your fucking orders always end up getting people killed. Doesn’t that matter to you at all? Or are you too afraid to take some responsibility, actually think about what’s best, and do the right thing. Oh yeah, you don’t want to hear about what’s right.”
“Bingo. Now if everyone’s done with the damn soap opera we need to keep going. We aren’t safe here in case you didn’t realize.”
Will scanned the swamp in front of him. It was well concealed beneath the trees and dried leaves of the forest. The only reason he knew it was there in the first place is because
