Nine - Ella

A/N-  Oh My Goodness! I am soooooo excited for you to read this chapter! Like, you have no idea. This one has been one of my favorites to write, ever.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. :]

Nine - Ella

I was officially up shit creek.

I watched the distance between where I was and where Kyle, Joel, and Miles were grow not really knowing what had happened. One second Kyle was shoving me out of the way as a zombie clawed at my arm, protecting me, and the next he was gone. It was like the world moved in super speed while I was stuck in slow motion, and suddenly I was standing there and there was a zombie between Kyle and me. I'd opened my mouth to call out, but he had two more in front of him. And lot more in line behind that. If I screamed he would turn around to check on me. I'd distract him and something would go wrong. Miles and Joel weren't any better off. I had been totally on my own.

I raised the knife Kyle had given me.

The one I'd already used to kill one zombie.

I could do it again.

The creature limped closer.

I just had to kill one. Deep breaths, Ella. Just one. Then I would catch up and the guys would protect me again.

Oh yeah, I've got this. I have totally got this.

The zombie was bigger than me; he was taller and had me by probably seventy-five or eighty pounds. Getting pinned under him would not end well for me. The one in the woods had been bigger than me too, but I killed it. I just have to skate around his side and knock him down like Kyle had coached me. Not even allowing myself a moment to take a deep breath, I moved around the zombie. With his attention fully on me, he started to turn, following me as I moved, but I was quicker. I managed to stay ahead of the zombie's movement, but I think the fact that he was turned at the hips worked for my advantage as I kicked my foot into his leg. Unlike the first time I'd tried the move, it worked. The zombie fell the ground.

It was totally inappropriate and not the time, but I turned to look around, hoping someone had seen that. They hadn't. I don't think they'd even noticed I wasn't there yet, they were so busy working their way to the other end of the street. I stared for a moment because they weren't killing all the zombies, just the ones in their way. The rest were blocking my path to them. I opened my mouth, completely ready to scream bloody murder for help because I needed them. Before I could make a noise a hand grabbed onto my thigh as a terrifying reminder that I celebrated too soon. I got the zombie down, but I hadn't actually killed him.

I was a fucking moron.

And I totally did not have this.

Things like that... they were the exact reason that only twenty-four hours ago people had been making bets about my untimely demise.

I whipped around, struggling to pull my leg from the zombie's grasp. When I finally yanked free, I stabbed the knife at him, missing his head, but easily slicing into his neck. Blood oozed out and all I could focus on was how it felt to stab a person - or something that used to be a person.

The zombie's head turned toward my arm and snapped it's jaw, trying to take a bite out of me. Without thinking it through, I yanked my hand away before the teeth could sink into my flesh, leaving behind the knife. Realizing what I'd done, I reached for the handle again, but when teeth snapped, I pulled away, abandoning my only method of defense.

"Kyle," I yelled each of their names in turn, but I couldn't see them. I could only see everything between us. And my yelling had caught the attention of everything between us.

Getting through that wasn't something I could even consider. Hell, I'd lost my knife. I wasn't brave or strong or courageous. I certainly wasn't a badass zombie killing ninja. I was a scientist... sort of. I was really just a student. An intern. I had just received my acceptance letter to grad school. I was not a person who could run through a horde of zombies.

So I did the only thing I could think. I ran away from the danger. I turned and booked it toward the first semblance of safety I could find.

I pulled on the first door I came to, what looked to be a restaurant. Locked. Frantically, I ran to the next and yanked as hard as I could nearly pulling the door off it's hinges. Pulling the door closed behind me, I searched for some way to keep anything I didn't want in from doing just that. Glancing around I realized this had been a - for lack of better description - crap store. It was filled with aisles and aisles of trinkets and little collectibles that you only ever saw in stores like this, because no one actually bought the cheap knick-knacks for their homes.

Spotting a Lazy-Susan style rack of children's toys set up near the register to be an impulse buy for parents to placate bored and mischievous children into behaving while they checked out, I saw the first thing I thought might work. A snake. A stuffed snake that had a tag pinned to its tail boasting a forty-eight inch length. It wasn't the greatest option ever, but it was the best I could up with.

Letting go of the door, I ran to the rack and pulled the snake off of it before the zombies on the other side figured out how to pull the handles to open the door. I looped it through the long push bars on each door and tied the stuffed animal into a knot. For good measure I tied it a couple more times.

I stepped back and took a breath, able to relax a little. I wasn't an idiot, I knew my attempt at a lock wouldn't hold forever, or even for very long. It didn't have to though, it just had to hold long enough for one of the guys to get to me.

They would get to me. I hoped.

I'm just gonna be frank.

My survival skills? Not so great.

I should've been looking for something a little better to secure the door, but I was frozen. Three zombies had crowded around the glass doors, all pawing the window panes. All three sets of hollow, dead eyes were focused on me as they tried to find a way through the barrier and to their next meal - me. I should have been doing something to make sure that didn't happen. But I couldn't pull my eyes away.

It was like when you spot a really big freaking spider on your wall and you know you need to find a shoe, or get the bug spray, or something to kill it, but you also know that the moment you avert your eyes the spider will disappear from sight, but not far. It'll be somewhere, maybe closer. And then you feel that creepy tingly feeling on your arm and look down to see it somehow got you. It was like that. But worse. It felt like if I looked away they would have moved somewhere else, still close enough to be a major threat, only then I wouldn't know from which angle they'd attack.

I couldn't look away.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it was ridiculous to compare these horrible creatures to spiders. Most spiders were nothing more than a scare, maybe a heart palpitation and girly squeal. Deadly spiders definitely existed, but I had never run into anything more than your run-of-the-mill ordinary garden variety. I knew somewhere in my brain that these monsters were nothing like spiders... they were actually deadly.

A zombie at the door pulled at the handle and a gap several inches wide showed through. It was enough to fit arms. One worked its arm through the opening first and unbidden my feet started to backpedal. There wasn't enough space between me and them. The second worked its arm through and the stuffed animal stretched taut at the pressure, its seams straining from the weight of three zombies pulling on the doors.

It happened like the world was suddenly moving in slow motion and fast forward at the same time. The moment - seconds really, felt at once instantaneous and eternal. The stuffed snake ripped, at the seams first. White stuffing poked out from the broken stitches but the knot held.

Until it didn't.

The fabric of the snake started to tear, slowly at first, and then it just tore apart. Shredded like a piece of tissue paper.

Since they weren't the most coordinated creatures, it took a moment for them to realize what they'd done. One was still pushing on the door that the other two were trying to open. After a moment they unwittingly achieved their goal and barged through the door.

I stood paralyzed by fear as they pushed their way toward me. I had no weapon. The shop was small and crowded with so much stuff that there weren't many places for me to go. For all intents and purposes, I was backed against a wall.

Even if I did have a weapon, I barely stood a chance against one of them, much less three.

I was dead. If they came back for me, they would find me dead... or worse, a zombie.

Do something!

I didn't want to just stand there and let myself die, but I couldn't seem to take action no matter how loudly my brain screamed at me. I knew I should look around for something to defend myself with or a place to hide, but I could only stare at the grotesque beings in front of me. The one closest used to be a woman. Or a man with long hair, it was hard to tell since it was missing half of it's face and the other half was so bloodied I couldn't determine any real features.

I hadn't seen anything so... so terrifying in all my life. I thought I was scared when Kyle pushed me to kill the zombie in the woods but that one didn't look like this. It looked, ashen and dead but... it wasn't falling apart. It wasn't bloody. It certainly wasn't missing all the muscle and tissue from its left cheek. Its teeth were snapping together, at least the right teeth were, the left side of its jaw hung loosely, the teeth not quite meeting due to extreme lack of muscle.

I was staring at the zombie limping toward me, reaching its rotting fingers toward me completely unable to come up with anything better to do, when it collapsed. Its body went limp and the creature fell to ground, completely dead. The second and the third followed shortly and for a moment I thought whatever god may or may not exist struck them down for me. It may have been silly, to assume that some mystical, spiritual god killed zombies to save my life, but it was all that I could come up with.

Until I saw the knives embedded in each of their skulls.

I turned around slowly, too nervous about what was behind me to about-face with any urgency. I should have been thankful as I turned around to see a man watching me, throwing knives in his hand. But I wasn't. All I could remember was Kyle's warning that the further we got from Hudson, the shadier the people would become. My heart, which had slowed in the instant I realized the zombies weren't going to kill me, picked back up, pounding against my chest. He wasn't from Hudson. They all wore the same clothes I did.

"Suicide by zombie," he said, lips tilting up on one side. I didn't relax at the easy grin on his face. A smile and sarcastic comment didn't mean he was a good person. "Would not be my first choice."

He stepped closer and I moved back, not sure if I should be more worried about what might come through the door behind me, or the man holding the knives. Brown hair that hung down past his ears flopped on his forehead and green eyes pierced mine, waiting for some type of response.

"Can you speak?" He asked like he wouldn't be surprised if I didn't.

Because I couldn't come up with any words and I was quite scared of him, I just nodded.

He chuckled. "Are you hurt?" He asked and took another step toward me, like he wanted to help. I moved back, not trusting him and he stopped. "You probably wanna stay in here, there's still a bunch of creeps outside." He chanced moving closer and I countered his step, keeping space between us. Space was good.

Shaking his head, he mumbled something under his breath about skittish women and then met my eyes. "Look, I'm not gonna hurt you. We have a camp—"

"Did you find...?" A woman appeared from seemingly out of the blue. She must have been somewhere in the building. I'm sure there's a stockroom of some sort, even for a shop this small. Her question trailed off when she noticed her friend's attention on me. Dropping whatever she was going to say, she turned toward me, moving like a freaking ninja and pulled a gun from... well I didn't see where she pulled it from because she moved that quickly and gracefully. And then the gun was aimed at my head.

My hands shot up at the same time my heart stopped in my chest.

I'd never had a gun pointed at my head. Or at any place on my body. I could have happily died without experiencing such a thing.

Suddenly the girl was every bit as scary as the zombies her friend had just saved me from. It didn't matter that she was nearly a head shorter than me. Her hair was short and choppy, but the color blonde that women would go to salons for to achieve. She wore a black tank top and torn blue jeans with hiking boots and she held the gun with such confidence, I wondered if they were another group of runners. Maybe they belonged to the church or that farm the guys had mentioned.

But the thing that really had me were her eyes. Her blue eyes weren't dead, they were swimming with emotion. And every ounce of emotion I could see in them told me this girl was ready to pull the trigger.

"Sweetheart," the guy drawled carefully. If I hadn't been so terrified, I would have taken pause at that. Sweetheart? I can't imagine that the pocket-sized badass threatening my life was anyone's sweetheart. "I think you can put the gun down."

She didn't even glance his way. "Not happening."

"She isn't even armed."

"Don't care," She said, emotionless. "Look at her clothes, she's wearing a uniform. No way am I buying the pathetic zombie-bait act she has going on.

Yeah... sweet wasn't really the first thing that came to mind with this girl. The guy's eyes narrowed on my wardrobe and his head bobbed up and down as if he could see her point.

Well, shit. The only person who had kind of, sort of been in my corner in this situation was looking like he was jumping ship. This was not looking good for me.

"I am, though," I said, hoping to talk her down. Look, I didn't feel good about agreeing that I was, in fact, pathetic zombie-bait, but it was the truth. And I really, really didn't want this girl to shoot me.

She quirked an eyebrow.

"Honest," I rambled on. "I'm a—I'm a, uh, scientist."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Ella?" Kyle's familiar voice filtered through the air and into the shop and I was so happy to hear him, I thought I might faint. Seconds later he pushed open the door behind me, it had still been cracked open by one of the legs of a zombie that the guy had killed. He didn't even get a word out before I heard him shift and the tension in the room doubled. I chanced a glance behind me to see that Kyle had drawn a gun and had it pointed at the girl. Huh. I didn't even know they carried guns. I mean, it made sense, but up until now I hadn't seen any. They always used knives with the zombies. Kyle didn't move his eyes from the girl when he asked, "You okay, Ella?"

An awkward, breathy laugh left my lungs. "I think my definition of 'okay' may need to evolve. But I'm not hurt."

"Holy Fuck," the guy I didn't know said through a laugh. He was way too relaxed in this situation. Maybe he was crazy too. Maybe that's how people survived out here. "Kyle fucking Russell?"

My eyebrows shot up, confused. Maybe these people were runners from Hudson after all. No. That didn't make sense. If they were, I really doubted that they would have guns pulled. Based on the girls expression, that I'm sure mirrored mine with confusion, I'd say they weren't runners. Which meant the two men somehow knew one another.

Kyle paused for moment and then laughed too as he lowered his gun. The girl, I noticed, did not seem so inclined to lower hers which stayed firmly pointed at my forehead. "Winston? Shit, brother, good to see you alive."

Finally, she broke the hateful glare and glanced over at her friend, a smirk twisting her lips.

"Winston?" She asked, her lips twisting into a wry smile. "Yeah," she nodded, "You were right to stick with Hunter. No wonder you never said," she paused long enough to laugh and though it was genuine and musical it did nothing to lessen my fear of her. Maybe if she lowered the gun... "Atlas is going to love this."

Winston rolled his eyes. "You can lower your gun, sweetheart. Kyle's an old friend."

Annnnd the humor was gone. She narrowed her eyes at him. "So was Bryan."

"Kyle's a friend from the Army," he explained slowly. "He's saved my life more times than I can count. He isn't Bryan."

She waited a beat longer before finally placing her gun back in the holster, but she still looked wary. With the threat gone, Kyle and Winston... or Hunter maybe? I wasn't sure, crossed to each other and did that man hug where they shake hands and pull each other in for a quick pat on the back. I stood there, awkwardly. I could tell this was some reunion of old friends and call me a bitch, but I didn't care. I wanted to go. I wanted to be out of there, like, ten minutes ago. Bitchy barbie just held a gun to my head after I'd nearly become a nice little lunch for three zombies.

Kyle would have to forgive me if I wasn't feeling too chatty.

"We got a camp not to far, not much but it looks like your girl could use some rest." I hadn't been paying attention to their conversation, but his offer was hard to miss. Slack-jawed, I looked at Kyle. Was he about to agree to spending time with these people? Sharing a camp? I was pretty sure homegirl still had murder on her mind. But Kyle agreed. Without even glancing at me to check my feelings on staying with these people. Looked like we'd be spending the night in their camp.

When I noticed the girl staring at me, I forced a smile.

"I'm, uh, Ella," I said awkwardly and held out my hand, choosing to be civil as I introduced myself. And I deserved an award because this bitch had wanted to kill me. She frowned at my hand until it became clear she had no intention of accepting a handshake and I awkwardly let my arm fall limply to my side. This was soo not the beginning of wonderful friendship. I'd be inclined to bet Miles she'd kill me before the night ended. She finally flashed a tight-lipped smile and said, "Zero."