Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Thank You
A Note From L.D. Silver
Acknowledgements
On Our Own
By L.D. Silver
ON OUR OWN
Copyright © by L.D. Silver (2015). All rights reserved.
http://www.LDSilver.com
Editing by Hot Tree Editing
Cover Design by L.D. Silver
Cover Photo by Ivan Blitznetsov
Published by Firelight Tales Publishing
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons - living, dead or undead - or actual events, is entirely coincidental.
This book includes drug references. The people and situations described are fiction.
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any means or in any form - electronic, mechanical, through photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without written permission from the publisher.
Chapter 1
This is my fault.
Celie’s torn and bloody body lies before me, her candy apple red nails glistening in the sunlight. She was so proud of those nails, so happy with them. Now they’re chipped, and broken, and ruined.
“I’m so sorry, Celie,” I whisper.
The bell rings at the front of the convenience store and I jump. I reach around her body and grab my bat, my heart pounding in my chest. I’m not ready for this again. I wish the world would just stop.
I peek around the open storage room door.
There’s a little girl near the store’s entrance. She’s backlit by the bright Texas sun, and I strain to see signs of the virus. She’s a dark, menacing shape, small in size but large in danger.
She steps forward and the motion is slow. Still unsure as to whether she’s living or one of the corrupted dead, I raise the bat over my shoulder.
“Hello?” the girl calls. “Where are you?”
I rest my head against the doorframe. She’s alive. Not a threat at all, just a kid. Of course, this may be the same girl who almost got me killed, in which case, she is dangerous.
“Keep your voice down,” I hiss and open the door the rest of the way. She comes toward me, her features becoming clear as she walks out of the sunlight.
The girl is no more than ten or eleven years old. She’s thin, with shoulder-length wavy blonde hair and the pale skin of an indoor child. As far as I can discover, she has no bites, no scratches and her blue eyes have none of the tell-tale cracks of the virus. I don’t see any blood on her, either. Her jeans and sneakers are dirty, while her white t-shirt is clean. Somebody’s been taking very good care of her.
“Ohh,” she says, stopping a foot away from the open door with her eyes focused on the room behind me.
She’s looking at Celie. I block the door and cross an arm over my chest.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Coming after you.”
“You’re the one who yelled, aren’t you?”
On my way to the convenience store, a girl shouted at me from the second-story window of one of the stores bordering the street. Zombies poured into the area as soon as they heard her.
“Yes,” she says.
“You almost got me killed!” I can’t believe it. I was right. This nice, innocent-looking girl is the idiot who almost got my insides torn out like I was made of taffy.
“Is that a girl?” She rises on her toes and tries to look around me.
“Yeah. Don’t get distracted. You. Almost. Got. Me. Killed.” I don’t touch her, but I emphasize my statement with a stabbing finger.
She frowns. “You made it here. And how else was I supposed to get your attention?”
The girl has me there.
“Don’t do it again,” I say, trying to sound as firm as my mom.
She points around me. “I saw her go by a few days ago. Never saw her come back, though.”
My grip tightens on the bat. “Did you yell when you saw her, too?”
“No. I had somebody then.”
So at least she hadn’t gotten Celie killed. No, that had been my fault. If I’d come with her, maybe she would have lived. And maybe we both would have been killed, a little voice in my head says.
I realize I can’t stand here glowering at her forever. “Why don’t you see if you can find a blanket or something so we can cover her up?”
She nods and starts walking down the small aisles of the store. I turn back to Celie. All my anger with the little girl fades away.
Celie’s brown hair is limp and flat against the floor, and her once-sparkling green eyes stare dully at the ceiling. My eyes dart over the places where the zombie ate her. I focus on the ceiling for a few moments and take some deep breaths. I sit down, shut her eyes, and take her hand in mine.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. I try to focus on her face, where she still looks like herself, but it doesn’t help. My eyes burn and I squeeze them closed.
She lived on my block, but she was older so we didn't hang out a lot. She’d always seemed happy and carefree; I’d never realized she was strong.
Celie saved my life, and then lost hers trying to get me food.
I squeeze my eyes tighter, fighting back the tears. I have to get her covered up and I have to say something. She deserves a proper burial. I can’t do that, but I’ll do the best I can.
“I couldn’t find any blankets,
but I grabbed some towels.” The little girl drapes some white kitchen towels on my shoulder.
“Thanks,” I reply. We cover Celie as best as we can. Then I clasp my hands together and bow my head.
“Thank you for saving my life, Celie. Thank you for helping me. I think you’re a good person.” A tear tries to escape, and I look at the ceiling until I’ve gained my composure. “You’re a good person and you deserve a good afterlife. If there’s a Heaven, you should be there. Thank you for everything you did.”
I turn away just as the tears fall. I swipe them from my face, take a deep breath, then count to ten and turn back. The little girl is looking down at the floor, her face sad.
“Thank you for the towels. I’m Delilah.” My voice is shaky at the start, but by the time I get to my name, it’s strong again. It’s not my real name. That doesn’t matter anymore, though, and I’ve always liked the name Delilah. I just like the sound of it, all fancy and clean and mysterious. Not at all like a dirty girl with a regular name.
“You’re welcome. I’m Cassie,” she says quietly.
“It’s nice to meet you, Cassie,” I say.
The storeroom is rather large, about the size of a kitchen with a breakfast nook included. Plastic shelves line one wall and are filled with cleaning supplies and various cans of food. Celie’s body is behind the open door, so I sit in the corner as far away from her as I can.
“You mentioned somebody’s been taking care of you.”
The little girl nods and sits down across from me.
“What happened? Did they go to find others?”
Cassie’s eyes flick towards Celie. “No.”
“Oh,” I say, realizing the fate of her caretaker. I gesture toward Celie. “She was my somebody.”
“I thought so.” We sit in silence for a few minutes and then she jumps up.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“To get a soda.”
“Just move slowly and be careful.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Please.”
Once I’m alone again, I slip my necklace out from under my shirt and hold the pendant in my hand. It’s a silver shamrock about the size of a quarter. The metal is beaten thin and the leaves are curved. This is the last thing my mom gave me before the world died.
I’d been watching the necklace for months, going to the store and holding it in my hand just like I am now. Each time I would think about taking some of my allowance and buying it, but every time I’d let it go and save the money for the spring formal instead. One day, my mom saw me. She said I’d been standing still for ten minutes, staring at the silver shamrock. When I told her why I put the necklace back, her brown eyes softened and she hugged me.
She surprised me with the necklace that night, saying it was for luck. Mom must have been right, because I’m still alive.
“Love you, Mom,” I whisper. I kiss the shamrock and slip it back under my shirt just as Cassie comes back into the room.
She opens a 7-Up and a candy bar and consumes a bit of both. “So,” she says with her mouth full, “what are you going to do next?”
I grimace at seeing the messed-up chocolate she’s showing me. Then I sigh. This morning I left the only hiding place I had, to get some food and find Celie. Now I’ve found her, but that’s as far as my plans went.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Any ideas?”
She puts down her food and this is the first time I’ve seen her look serious. Of course, I’ve only known her for about five minutes, but she doesn’t seem to be the solemn type.
“I need a new somebody.”
“Me, too,” I say and put my chin on my hand, looking at the floor. “If you were an adult in this mess, where would you go?”
“No, I meant – what about you? What about you being my new somebody?”
My eyes are drawn to Celie’s body. Celie took care of me, and my mom watched over me before that. Both of them were stronger than I’ve ever been. And now, both of them are dead.
Even though I blamed Cassie for calling the zombies and almost getting me killed, the truth is I barely got here anyway. The convenience store is half a mile from the garage I started out in and they almost got me. And less than an hour ago, I was fighting for survival in this store with the same zombie that killed Celie, just a few inches from a painful death.
“No.” I find myself shaking my head. “I can’t do it.”
“I saw the empty-head in the other room. You can do it!”
“What did you call them?”
“Empty-head. Their heads are empty until they see you.”
I grin at her apt description. “Empty-head. I like that.”
She pouts and crosses her arms. “You’re not fooling me. You can do it. Take care of me, Delilah.”
I look at Celie and a shiver runs through me. “I’m sorry, kid. I can’t do it. I know what happens to somebodies.”
The pout disappears and a calculated look forms on her face. I recognize that expression from my brother, right before he got me to do something I didn’t want to do. Crap. She’s cheery and a thinker.
“What if we were more of a team?”
“A team?”
“Yeah. It wouldn’t be you taking care of me, or me taking care of you. It would be us, working together, helping each other. No somebody. A team. Until we find an adult somebody,” she says with a grin.
I think about it. On my own, how long will I really last? Having someone else along would help, especially if she doesn’t think I’ll do everything for her, like I thought Celie would do for me. And I won’t be alone.
“Okay,” I agree.
“Yeah!” She punches her arms into the air, smiling. I return the smile and shake my head at her enthusiasm. Something tells me she’ll be trouble.
Cassie finishes her snack and leans against the wall. “So, what do we do now?”
“Stay here until an adult finds us?” I answer.
She looks at me like I’m an idiot.
“Yeah, I know, it’s not going to happen. There is no roving band of adults looking for kids.” I lean against the bookshelf that holds paper towels and toilet paper, feeling a rod poke into my back. “In the past when I had a bad day, there was one place I could always go that would cheer me up. And now there are even fewer limitations than there were before.”
“Where?” she asks.
I smile. “The mall.”
“The mall? It’s the end of the world and you want to go to the mall?”
“Yeah. It always cheers me up. But I also want some stuff. Practical things, like sleeping bags. Maybe weapons, too.”
“Good idea, but it’s like a mile from here or something, with ten thousand zombies in between us and there.”
“Well, how did you get here?”
“I ran.”
“Didn’t they follow you?”
“Yeah, but they’re slow.” She rolls her eyes. “And stupid.”
“Stupid?”
“Yeah. Before I came in the store, I left the door to the next shop wide open. Then I made sure they couldn’t follow me in here even if they did figure things out.”
“They went in the open door instead, didn’t they?”
“Yep.” Cassie smiles.
“There you go,” I say.
“Can you run for a mile?”
“No.” I shake my head. “But we’ll use the same idea: run for a bit and throw them a decoy.”
“Okay.”
“Have you come across any fast ones?”
There’s that look again, the one that says I’m an idiot.
“The empty-head in the store out there moved fast.”
I bite a hangnail off my index finger. I don’t tell her that I knew his name. I don’t tell her that he was mean to me in life, and in death, and that he was the first zombie I ever killed.
“Anyways,” I continue. “If he moved fast, then there’s got to be others that can do the same. If one of those comes after you, scream and I’ll hel
p.”
“Okay. When do you want to leave?”
“Now. Go to the bathroom and then we’ll head out.”
“In here?”
“Yeah. No use opening the door until we have to.”
I find a bucket and grab some of the toilet paper behind me. I turn my back while she goes, then we switch positions. After that, I look for a weapon for her. I find a mop and unscrew the wood shaft from the head, but it’s too big for her to swing. I jump on the shaft in an effort to break it in half, but fall on my butt instead, which sets Cassie into a fit of giggles.
I find a broom, but that’s too big as well. Finally, I find one more thing that might work.
“Ewww – a plunger? I’m not touching the bottom of that thing.”
I sigh, tear off the bottom and hand her just the stick. “If they get too close, stick it in their mouth when they try to bite you.”
She nods, but holds it loosely, doubt radiating from her. Looking at the flimsy weapon, I wonder if we’re doing the right thing. Should we just stay here? There’s plenty of food. But eventually that would run out, and then we’d be desperate, like I was this morning. Best to go now while we’re still strong.
“Ready?” I ask.
She nods, gets a firm grip on her weapon, and grins at me. Then she lets out a whoop and runs to the door, pulling it open while I’m still standing there.
“Cassie!” I shout, and run after her.
Chapter 2
The sunlight dazes me. I’m afraid Cassie will get attacked before I can catch up.
“What?” She smacks her makeshift weapon against her leg.
“Wait for me,” I say. She makes a noise in response. My vision returns and I see that, fortunately, this back area is deserted. Amazing – no zombies and no bodies. For a moment, life seems normal.
We’re in the alley behind the convenience store. The dumpsters for all the stores are along this road so the garbage-people can drive in one long line and collect for the entire street. In front of us are more buildings, but to the left is another road going north toward the mall. I motion Cassie toward it with my finger on my lips.
This time, I take the lead. I begin with a walk, though we’d discussed running. I poke my head around the corner and see no zombies there, either.
I motion to Cassie and she comes to my side. She sees the alley is free of bodies and nods at me. Almost at the same time, we take off.
On Our Own Page 1