Morning...
Eve shakes me and everyone else awake. "Come on, we should get going..." We all comply and Sophia starts driving. Sammy has shifted to sit in between Olivia and Eve as there is more space there. "So today, let's head to this oh-so-mysterious "forest," I say to Sophia. "It'll be fine, I'm sure there will be a ranger's station and a few zomb... infected people there" she corrects herself. Worry suddenly takes over me "don't you think this was a little impulsive, we left abruptly and have an idea what is to happen next. I know I voted for this but I'm worried" I say. "It is but we'll work everything out as long as we stay together, we would've had to leave the house eventually anyway. It wasn't safe being so close to the school full of infected people" Sophia states with her eyes fixated on the road ahead.
I think to myself oh my God. We are a bunch of impulsive teenagers in a car with an inexperienced driver with our intended destination being a random "forest". We are fucking screwed. We drive up to a crowd of trees and park the car in a secluded area. If someone was to drive next, they wouldn't be able to see it.
We grab our stuff and spot a ranger's station. Sophia carries Sammy in his cat bag while he meows in his new surroundings. I thought about leaving Sammy in the car but thought it best to take him. "Sophia how in the bloody hell you knew where this place was is unbelievable. It's convenient, almost too convenient" I whisper in the last part. I'm skeptical it's like something out of a shitty movie, no this is real! We are just a bunch of lucky kids whose unrealistic circumstances have found their way to us. I should be grateful. "Hey what's that building over there?" Olivia shouts over to us and points at
"It looks like a ranger's station. We slowly approach the station and are very cautious. We all walk in one by one. We haven't seen anything yet so we look around and find leaflets scattered across the floor, a few pairs of ranger's boots and ranger's jackets. I look around and see a desk and make a beeline for it.
I look through the doors and find a pencil, notepads, documents and come across a lighter. The last drawer I can't open as there is a lock on it. The door behind the desk creeks and I see Eve open the door to explore this undiscovered room. "Shit!" I hear Eve say in a state of shock and watch her fall back onto the floor.
I look up and find a bloody mouthed, bleary-eyed ranger making its way to Eve. The ranger lunges at Eve and I watch her struggle. Sophia tried throwing random items at the ranger. I look and find her throwing a stapler at the ranger's head. If this was under any other circumstances I would most definitely laugh but due to the fact my best friend is in danger, I don't have time for it.
I grab the chair at the ranger's desk and whack the ranger in the back with it causing it to grunt. At this weak point, Eve takes her chance and gets out from under the zombie ranger's grip. The ranger slowly makes its way towards us as we all huddle together. "Quick! Take your knives out!" I call them. Sophia gets her knife out and jumps to the ranger. She hesitates and I'm scared for her. She's not going to do it, she won't. Will she? "Quick Sophia!" I urge her. She briefly closes her eyes and her knife makes contact with the ranger's skull. I hear the vile sound of bone being strained. We all stand back in fear. The ranger is on the ground. Tears fall freely from my eyes, Sophia looks in a state of shock with tear-stained cheeks. Eve and Olivia are panting, sweating with fear.
With the help of Eve, I dragged the ranger's body outside of the station, it was not a pretty sight or experience seeing ranger die and it's dead, decaying body lying in the middle of the tiled floor isn't a pretty sight. We drag the ranger's body to the back of the station where it will be unseen. Eve and I just stare at the ranger's dead face. "We should check his pockets for anything valuable," I say.
I cautiously check the ranger's coat pocket and find a packet of gum, keys and a wallet. I don't dare check the wallet, I take the gum and keys and we head inside. We find Sophia being consoled by Olivia, Sophia looks blank. I check to see if the keys would unlock the locked drawer, the first few keys don't work and finally, I find the key which fits. Inside the drawer contained random documents, I picked them up and started to read.
"Report 671: DATE - 26/3/51 TIME - 2:39pm
"Hikers being male and female in their late 60's have reported being attacked by another individual. The individual was said to be an adult female around the age of 30, blonde hair. The individual did not possess any weapons, the female did, however, get aggressive with the hiker couple clawing at them and assaulting the male hiker. The victim is said to have a bite mark on the neck. After the assault, the hikers fled and reported the attack to the on-shift ranger at the time."
Night comes...
It was night time and after discovering the ranger's report and finding several other ones in the drawer my mind was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Sophia had calmed down and we decided on bunking in the ranger's office, in the back room there was a random single bed and we let Sophia take it as she was still pretty shaken up. We all shared a can of peaches before heading off to bed.
Olivia, Eve and I slept on our make-shift beds on the floor in the tiny room while Sammy snuggled up to Sophia on the bed. Sleep had consumed us all while I just stared at the ceiling. I just kept thinking back to those reports. What if the HIV virus had gone out of control and the government in an attempt to contain the virus tried to keep everything under the down-low by not making it apparent to the public. It was so frustrating, they said there was a wide-spread contamination of meat which had rapidly picked up. My thoughts were disturbed by a quiet sobbing... I sit up and find the source of the crying. Eve.
"Eve," I say to get her attention. "What's wrong?" I say stupidly, we are in the middle of an apocalypse and just witness someone die and I am asking her what's wrong. "I-I, I don't know what to do anymore. All our parents are dead. All our families. Gone! I'd rather be dead with them" She sniffs. "Eve look at me," I say and hold her hands. "We will get through this. You don't know if your parents are gone or not. We're all scared right now. We need to stick together and not stray, if our families are dead then they would've wanted us to get through this together. We need to stay strong. We all love you and need you" I say with tears blurring my visions. She doesn't say anything, we just hug each other. Time stopped and we could've stayed like that for hours or minutes. Eventually, the morning came.
Morning...
"What do we do now? We got here but are we planning on staying here, eventually, we will need to hunt for food and find water" I question. "We need to look for freshwater today, that's what we'll do today" Eve replies. "Let's get ready everyone and we'll start looking" I state.
We all get changed and take steps outside of the ranger's station. "So are we looking uphill or downhill?" Sophia questions. "I think it's better if we work our way up?" I say with Eve nodding in agreement with me. We head uphill. It's difficult to make out our surroundings. Everything is well, just moss, trees and certain dampness.
Then I hear it "shush!" I say interrupting Eve and Olivia's conversation. They comply. I suddenly hear the sound of trickling water. "I hear water!" We all follow the trickling noise and find a stream. "The water looks to be fast-pacing enough to be safe to drink," I say. We all stop and cup water in our hands, first I drink from the stream and I felt a wonderful feeling of my thirst being quenched, I felt the cool water trickle down into my empty stomach. I love this feeling, it made me feel alive. After splashing our faces with water and drinking we follow the stream downhill.
We continued to follow the stream downhill for an hour. We found around two stray zombies, none of which were too close for comfort. We just dodged them and continued in our path. It was sometime in the afternoon and I became weary. We had to get back to the station before nightfall, so I made a mental note. We finally reach the bottom of the stream and are met with a lake.
Sophia and Olivia headed back to the station as they both complained, I didn't want to split up but they insisted. It was now just Eve and I. The lake was absolutely beautiful. There were a few cabins dotted around it and we came across a sign. Lake Edam, Following the letter, came to Conic Camp. "So this is a freaking camp?" I question Eve. "Looks like it. Should we check the cabins?" Eve asks. "Probably, be stealthy okay, we'll go around them through the bushes and we'll peer inside" Eve nods.
We couch down in the bushes at the first cabin. We slowly both peer inside and find around five boys inside the cabin. Actual non-infected boys.
The first boy looked quite young around twelve, he had blonde hair and wore a Conic Camp cap on his head. He sat on a bunk bed flipping through a comic book. The second boy who stood near a kitchenette concentrated on a mug. He had curly brownish-hair and a friendly face, his skin was tanned and he was cute.
The third boy slumping lazily on a chair blew me away, he was handsome, too handsome. He had hair as dark as the night sky and those eyes he had the most incredible green eyes that met mine. Wait what? My eyes grew wide as he looked right at me. Eve and I both ducked. "He saw me! We need to get out of here!" I say in a whisper. We sprint for it, a few seconds after being bolted we heard the cabin door burst open and footsteps run after us. I didn't get a chance to see the remaining two boys; it didn't matter. There's no way we will outrun these boys.
I shove Eve into a bush and I jump in too. "Ouch!" Eve says. We cover our mouths and hear the boys run past us after around twenty minutes of being cramped in a bush and being sure they are away for now. We rush back to the station which we have to run uphill for about an hour and a bit. "Who are they and why are they there?" Eve asks me. "The little kid looks like a child went to the camp, obviously it was wearing the camp's uniform. I don't know about the two boys that looked about our age. I didn't get a chance to look at the other boys, only the kid, the curly-haired one and the one on the chair" I explain. "There were two other boys talking with each other, looking around early twenties" Eve states.
We made our way inside the station...