Tears

The next morning I awoke to Shawn talking about moving to a more secure area. The adults weren't too pleased with the idea. So for the time being we were holding off on moving. But we did settle on doing a supply mission to another local store. There would be two teams, one being one full of adults. The group had Lilly, her mom, and her dad. They were a tiny group but had a lot of chemistry. The other group was me, Shawn and his mom, Hayden, and Matthew. Which, looking back on it, is a terrible idea, who would bring a thirteen year old with them?

Anyways the two groups were assigned different tasks, Lilly's group was in charge of gathering resources we need to survive, including food, water in case the water goes out soon, things we could use to cure our boredom, like board games, or lego sets. Though their main focus was grocery stores for the food and water. My group was assigned medicine or anything to patch up wounds. Lilly's group left first, and after making a plan, our group left as well. One thing I have noticed is zombies aren't around much during the day. I'm not sure where they go. But I guess they don't like the sun. We started making our way to the area we planned to go to, then on the way, Shawn spotted a warehouse in the distance, and thought that it would be a good idea to see if it had anything useful. So he suggested that we split up. Shawn and his mom would search a warehouse nearby and Hayden, Mathew, and me would go to a little clinic up the road. I wasn't too keen on the idea, usually this is what goes wrong in horror movies, and we have the thirteen year old in our group. But I ultimately agreed.

After a few minutes, we got inside of the clinic. It was a broken building, with many chunks of the walls falling out, and the roof collapsed in one corner of the building. Ignoring the clear sign of catastrophe. Matthew and I started searching in the back of the clinic for medicine. Hayden said he was going to get onto a high point so he can scout the area, looking for Shawn, and anything that we may be able to loot in the future. I found some painkillers, but unfortunately everything else was already taken. All of the sudden, I got really drowsy, feeling like I was about to puke. I told Matthew I was stepping out for a bit. He looked anxious but said he would keep looking for more stuff whilst I was outside the building. I walked outside and found that Hayden had come down from a roof on a nearby building. We had a little chat, saying how it was kind of peaceful outside, with the breeze, and the birds. We were silent for a minute, then Hayden asked a question, "Wait, where's Matthew?"

All of a sudden we heard a loud high pitched scream from inside. Me and Hayden both ran inside the clinic, looking frantically around. I found Mathew fighting off a Runner in an office cubicle. I ran up behind the Runner and stabbed into its brain with a kitchen knife I grabbed from base before we left. I stabbed it in the head a few more times for good measure. I helped Mathew up as Hayden ran into the cubicle. I'm asking him if he's okay. There was blood all over Matthew. At first, I thought nothing was wrong, until I took a closer look. Then I noticed he was bleeding from his left arm. I moved his hand away and saw that he had a bite mark. Hayden noticed at about the same time as me. "Shit," he muttered. Hayden went outside to find Shawn and his mom. While I stayed to patch up Matthew with the bandage we brought along just in case. I was comforting the crying boy when his mom busted through the door, asking what happened to her baby. We explained all that we knew, but only Matthew knew the whole story. We decided quickly for him to just tell us at the base, as we took too much time planning earlier and it was getting close to sunset.

Whenever we arrived back home. We sat down and Matthew told us what happened. After I left the building, he heard something fall over from a cubicle down the hallway, and instead of getting one of us to check it out, he decided to do it. As such, when he got there, he saw a zombie, just standing there with his head tilted down. He tried to take the opportunity to attack it with his screwdriver. But he screwed up and tripped on a light that fell down from the ceiling. Apparently while he fell he stabbed into its leg and his momentum dragged the screwdriver down to the runner's ankle. Not only wounding it greatly, but also making it incredibly angry, the zombie then tackled Matthew down to the ground and started punching him, then at some point, the Runner must have thought that Matthew couldn't fight back, and just took a bite out of his arm. That's when Lilly's group got back, just before nightfall. I guess Shawn's mom was too stressed to hear the rest of the story, so she just decided to make dinner.

Mathew said he would be right back, then went to the restroom, a few seconds later we heard a yell from the bathroom. Shawn runs to the door and barges it open, I followed behind and saw what was happening to Mathew. His skin looked as pale as Shawn, and he looked like a sheet of paper. Matthew was also skinnier than he was. Matthew then cranks his head in a crude angle and stares at Shawn for a moment, then starts to growl and right before he starts running at us. Shawn shuts the door with a quick flick of his arm. He yelled that Mathew had turned and that we needed a chair to lock the door in place so he couldn't get out. When I looked at Shawn, I saw he was shedding a tear. I guess he actually did love his brother. Shawn walks slowly to his mom, gives her a hug, and then they both fall to the ground in tears.