TwentyFive - Ella

"They look drunk," I whispered to Zero as we got closer to the highway where four men were hanging out. I think they were supposed to be patrolling or something, but they'd decided drinking was a better time. And from the looks of it, they'd had a lot to drink. One fired off shots at a zombie, having to take three before he finally hit it at an almost point blank range. They all stumbled around. I couldn't imagine how stupid a person had to be to drink out here. "That doesn't seem too smart."

Zero shrugged. "It's not, but they have a decent look around them. Either way, stupider the better." She squinted her eyes, leaning forward to get a better view. "That one," she pointed to one of the men who was thinner than the others and sat quietly watching his companions make idiots of themselves. "He's sober, I think. We take him out first."

Did I want to attack these men, help her kill them? I completely believed the world was a better place without these men. They were only harming what was left while the rest of - most of us, I hoped - were working so hard to rebuild it. Still, I'd never killed a person before. Not a living, breathing one anyway, and I had only rekilled one already dead one. Deserved or not, I didn't think I could take a human life, and, if I'm being honest, I didn't want to be anywhere near those men.

"If they're too drunk to spot us, we should sneak past and get what we came for."

She looked over her shoulder at me. Her face softened and there wasn't a hint of judgment in her eyes, just understanding. "You don't have to do this, Ella. I can handle them on my own."

I got the feeling that no, she couldn't. They may have been drunk, but there were still four of them and one of her. And they all had weapons. She was maybe a little crazy. It was, like, a prerequisite to being good at killing zombies.

"Why don't we get them on the way back? Make sure we don't tire ourselves out." I waited, but she didn't look ready to budge. I could see it, everything about her screamed what she was thinking, she wanted the assholes to pay. Further, she wanted to be the one to do it. "We're trying to get something that can save people, end this whole thing. A desire of vengeance can wait."

Zero rolled her eyes at me. "Alright."

I barely held back my relieved sigh. I could have huggged her, except that I was pretty sure if I did she'd shoot me. We pulled out from where we'd hidden from the sight of the men and Zero stopped suddenly.

"If you don't want to fight those men, no guns."

"What are you—" I looked into the night and saw the dark outlines of zombies coming our way. There were twenty maybe, it was hard to tell what was zombie and what was shadow. But it was all blocking our path. We had a lot of leeway with routes and roads to take, but this was sort of unavoidable. If we didn't got under this overpass, we'd have to go around it, which would lead straight to the mend waiting on top. The same men who were stupid enough to keep shooting into the night and attracted the zombies. "Shit."

"If you can push it out of your way, do so. You spend too much time trying to kill one, another will grab you," she says quietly. "We go straight through."

I wished Kyle was there. I was selfish and stupid and silly for wishing such a thing. I left him behind because I didn't want him to put himself in this kind of danger for me and now that danger was surrounding me, I wanted him.

"It's too late to go back," she said as if reading my mind.

"Okay, I'm ready," I told her knowing I would never actually be ready for this. Ever. So right then was as good a time as any to enter into the fray.

Zero sort of nudged me with her elbow, which I think was supposed to be a show of solidarity or reassurance that we had this, but it was lacking. And she nodded and started forward, I kept pace with her, practically shoulder to shoulder. I didn't want to risk getting separated and that way we only had to cover three of four sides. When we hit the first zombies, they converged quickly surrounding us. All reaching out at grabbing toward us. It wasn't that many, maybe three, but it felt like dozens. I glanced to the right to see my self-appointed partner in crime take out a zombie with ease and kick another out of her way.

"Keep up," she said loud enough for me to hear.

Right. I yanked away from the zombie whose hands were grabbing at my left shoulder and shoved it off. With free hands, I held my knife tighter. I would not let it go. I would not drop it. Stepped into the zombie in front of me, ducking down enough that I missed its swinging arms and, taking a page out of Zero's playbook, I stood up into it, blade first.

Instantly, I understood what Kyle meant when he'd explained the knife he'd given me was good. The one I had was sharp, no doubt, but it didn't cut into the zombie as smoothly as the other. The zombie felt to its knees before me, and as I yanked the knife out and pushed the corpse back, jumping over it as I kept forward. Zero yelled and said something to me, but it was lost in the groans of the dead.

I kept moving.

I was no ninja. I wasn't kicking them away left and right. I wasn't even killing one for every two that came at me. But I pushing through. I wasn't becoming a meal. I killed a third and a fourth. My heart was pounding, my whole body rushing with adrenaline. But I wasn't scared. There wasn't any time to be scared. There was time to push and shove. Time to duck under swinging hands and jump over dead corpses. Time to jam the blade into skulls and yank, yank, yank it back out.

I sort of got it, what Zero had said earlier and what Kyle had said even before then. It was an adrenaline rush. It took your mind off of everything but what was right in front of you. They weren't that hard to kill, there were just so damn many of them. But killing them, successfully killing them, took away the fear. We broke free of the horde on the other side of the overpass and ran in the middle of the street, our focus on putting distance between the zombies and our bodies before we stopped for a breath.

"Hey!" A shout yelled out, echoing in the night. We stiffened. "Hey, down there! Just what the fuck do you think you're doing in our city?"

The speech was drunken and slurry, but we could make it out and when he shouted, "John, call for backup. Tonight just got fun," our eyes met.

"We could run," Zero said. "Or we could kill them before they have a chance to call for back up."

Any excitement I'd felt over killing six - yes, six! - zombies was quickly push aside for panic. If we run and they call for back up, they'll have an idea where we've gone. They'll wait us out. They'll find us.

"I can't go through that again," I whispered and Zero bobbed her head in understanding. "There's no rescue team."

"Just us." She nodded firmly. "We have to kill them."

Zero whirled around before I even have time to register the words that just left my mouth. She lifted her gun and squeezed the trigger, firing easily - as if it were an extension of her arm - and without regret. The man who had been shouting at us, hanging over the guardrail fell forward, crashing into the pavement not ten feet from where we stood. Zombies that were coming toward us were distracted by the drop and knelt to rip into the man. The still alive man. The man who screamed from the bullet wound and the fall and finally from the zombies tearing and biting into his flesh. It was a shame the bullet didn't kill him. Awful human or not, I didn't want to hear his screams. I didn't want him to feel the zombies tearing into him.

"One down, three to go," Zero mumbled, seemingly unaffected. "Come on," she said louder and took off.

I ran after her, up the concrete bank to get to the overpass. She didn't struggle for a second, hopping over the railing and onto the street. Apparently alongside her ninja, zombie-killing skills, the girl was also well-versed in parkour. It wasn't so easy for me when I climbed over the rail to join her. When she stood, she rolled shoulder and reached up to rub a muscle. Huh. Maybe she was a little sore.

"You want to live?" She said, tone deadly. Her arms were extended, aiming the gun at the man holding a walkie-talkie. He may have been drunk, but he was able to recognize the threat before him. He nodded, looking ready to piss himself. I imagined it was how I looked the first I met Zero. I doubted tonight would end as well for him as my first encounter with her. "Tell them you fucked up. Thought a creep was a living person."

I stepped closer, cautiously standing next to Zero.

"Ella," She said without looking at me. "Get out your gun. Any of them move, you shoot."

Hesitantly, I did just as she said as a static-filled voice came through the walkie, demanding to know what was going on.

The guy - I didn't think he was much older than either of us - slowly pressed the button and spoke into the speaker. He looks at us, his eyes wide. And then the moment of decision and I see his choice clear as day. Defiance. He didn't let us off. He knew his death was coming. Zero was not going to let him walk away from this. He opened his mouth to speak. Others would come. I'd be back on a cross. Kyle would find me again, but it would be too late. We'd be dead. That couldn't happen.

I couldn't let that happen.

A loud pop filled my ears and belatedly I realized that my hand was shaking, still holding the trigger down.

Everything was silent for a moment and then the wailing started.

A month after I got my drivers license I was backing out of the driveway on my way to school and one of my rear wheels ran over a cat. The animal didn't die immediately. It screamed in driveway for what seemed like an eternity. That phrase about screaming like a dying cat, it has merit. It's this awful wailing sound that never leaves you. I cried for two days over that cat. I didn't even know it, but it died a horrible death at my hands... or car. It was the worst sound I'd ever heard. Was. The guy screamed in the road. I wasn't sure where I hit him, but the sounds became gurgled wails as he half-choked on his own blood. The cat had nothing on him.

"Somebody else want to give it a go?" Zero asked the two remaining drunks.

I don't know how I managed to keep my gun up and pointed at them. It felt like a hundred pounds in my hands. My stomach churned as the sounds of death assaulted me. But I refused to look. I kept my eyes trained on the two remaining men. The bigger of the two took off toward us. I don't know what he was expecting to accomplish by bum rushing us, but it didn't end well for him. It looked like Zero was right, they were drunk and foolish and easy to take down. One remained.. He inched forward, to the walkie-talkie his friend dropped.

"I have no desire to be shot," he said carefully as he picked it up. He stepped into the moonlight and my whole body tensed. His hair was nice and his face was shaved. He looked like a normal guy. Like a nice guy. The kind you might flirt with in line at the coffee shop. But that's not what he was. He was evil. In the past, I'd wondered if people could be completely evil. He taught me they could.

"Zero," I whispered through barely moving lips. "He was one of the men in the woods."

I wasn't sure she heard me until I saw her nod.

"If you try anything," she said. "I will flay the flesh from your bones and make you watch as I feed it to the creeps down there. Understood?"

His eyes widened with fear and even though the image that Zero forced in my mind was enough to make me sick, I enjoyed his fear. It was wrong and messed up. But he had so enjoyed the terror he caused me and I was only human.

"All is good here, Mark," he said into the walkie. "John and Ian just acting like drunken assholes, playing target practice with the dead."

Laughter came through the speaker and the person on the other end said something about making sure the idiots don't shoot each other. Zero released a breath, the only sign all night that she'd been anything but calm.

"Thanks," she said.

"That's it, right. You can go now."

"Not quite," Zero corrected him, taking a step closer. "See my friend?" He looked to me, but I was half-shrouded in shadow and no recognition clicked for him. "I don't think he recognizes you, Ella. Come here." I didn't want to. But I did want to. So I stepped closer and then his eyes did light with recognition. "Getting it now?"

"I'm sorry," he said, holding it hands up as the walkie slipped from them and crashed into the pavement. "I'm sorry."

"You think sorry is enough? You wrapped her and another one of ours to a wooden stake in the ground with barbed wire and you think an apology will make everything okay?"

"You said you wouldn't shoot me."

"I'm not going to. Ella, keep your gun on him."

I didn't know what she was doing, but Zero holstered her weapon and walked to where the men all had dropped their bags. She dug through each of them though I had no idea what she was looking for until she pulled out a small, long box. She opened up the medical kit and pulled out a syringe and small bottle of something. She picked up a flashlight and studied the bottles she held before nodding. She stuck the syringe in and filled it up and then walked over to the man.

"I'm going to give you the same shitty chance you gave my family." She jabbed the needle into his neck and emptied the contents.He stood, shocked for moment as the drug entered his system, shutting down his control of each of his muscles. And then he collapsed to the ground.

"You okay?" She stood in front of me, close to me. "Ella?"

I blinked. Once. Twice. I opened my mouth to tell her I was okay. "I killed someone."

A frown pulled at her pixie-like features and then her arms grabbed onto me and wrapped around my back.

"I'm sorry." She pulled away quickly, not being a very huggy person, but I could tell she meant the words. I just nodded because I couldn't tell her it was okay. I shot someone. I killed a living human being. And it didn't matter that it was us or them. Or that they were horrible. I killed a person.

"Let's go."