#2

He saw her come out from the back. Her knuckles almost translucent, as she clutched the crowbar in her hand. Her hair, which could really have been any color had it not been for the dirt, was dark and curly. Though, much like him, she had the look of a veteran survivor. He watched her for a while as she searched the store for life or death. Finding neither, she took her searching to finding food. Even though the place was empty, she left no shelf unchecked. Finally Sam stood up. She caught the movement and spun quickly on her heels and charged him, the crowbar above her head, ready to kill. She had no fear, and Sam jumped back, not expecting this in the least bit. He held up his hands.

“Stop! I’m a survivor like you!” Sam screamed.

She stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes watering, her body trembling, her hands giving way to the weight of the crowbar, letting it fall to the floor. She sunk to her knees and, her shoulders slouched, her head hung down. She cried. Sam didn’t know what to do. He just stood there. All he could think was that her crying was going to draw much attention to them and they didn’t want that.

“You have to stop crying. The will hear you and then, well, I don’t think I have to remind you what they will do to us. We haven’t survived this long to get careless now.” He stepped forward and held out his hand.

She looked up at him, the blood stained weapon on the ground beside her. She picked it up with one hand, the other she used to push herself up off the ground.
“I thought I was all alone here. Where… how… I thought everyone was dead.” Her lip quivered, on the verge of crying again.

“There were others. About 20 of us, then we got split up. 15 went north after a building crashed down, and cut us off. I am all that is left out of the rest. I don’t know how the others faired. I can only imagine the same fate found them.” He had some good friends in that group. He hadn’t thought of them in a long time. It hurt to remember the loss, so he pushed them back out of his mind.

“So it’s just me and you then?” She couldn’t believe that out of a whole city, state, maybe even country, and all that was left was them.
“I don’t know, you tell me. Two minutes ago, it was just me and the zombies.” He chuckled a little.

“Don’t say that word. Please don’t say that word. It just makes this nightmare so much more worse. To think, that we actually created things that cause so much death and destruction. It’s almost too much to bear at times.” Little did she know, Sam, was one of those creators, and he blamed himself every day for what he helped create.

“Well, we best be getting out of here. I know where we can go. It will be night soon, and night is not a good time to be out around here. I am Sam by the way.” He held his hand out once again, this time she took it.