Logan's breaths came out in pants, his legs burned from exhaustion, but he didn't dare let himself stop. He had to find Aly and he had to get to his apartment. With any luck, the security forces would push back the Infected and repairs on the wall could start as early as the gates had closed. But he had to find Aly first and foremost.
He'd just sprinted past the resource center when he heard a shout of his name. Logan halted immediately and shot his head around to try to find the source of the voice, when it happened again.
"Logan, you dumb fuck, over here!"
Logan's head shot to the west and found a girl in an oversized sweater leaning against a building waving him over. He ran over and pulled her up. Her eyes peered up at him from under blonde bangs.
"What's going on? What happened? Why are you running?" She asked.
"Remember that Infected you saw at the gate that got turned away this morning? Well, it turned and somehow got inside and it's by the southern gate. It..." Logan hesitated telling her, but the concern in her eyes pushed him over the edge. "It looked at me. Or rather, it looked through me. Like it couldn't see me."
"Was it cool-looking? Did it have boils and blisters like the books say?"
"What? No! It looked human, just a really pale human and it couldn't seem to look me in the eyes."
"So it didn't try to eat you?" Aly pouted. "Well that's lackluster."
"Alyssa will you please take this seriously? This has never happened before and I don't know what'll happen next."
"Hey, it'll all be okay." Aly continued to whisper pretty words of comfort, wrapped her arms over his shoulders and brought his head to rest in her collarbone. Logan tensed up at her touch but quickly relaxed, taking deep breaths to calm himself down and get rid of some of the paranoia bleeding into his bones.
"We have to get back to my apartment. It's in the northeast side so we should be safe there."
"Safe from what?" Aly pulled away from Logan, confused. "Logan, it's inside the walls, sure, but you said it yourself: it didn't attack you, it was just staring. The security forces will drive it back outside the wall and then we can go about the rest of our meaningless lives."
"I'd just rather be safe than sorry, y'know?" Logan's mouth curled into a smirk. "Plus my apartment has coffee and scrabble."
"Sounds like a date."
Logan let Aly wind her arm through his and they began walking back to his apartment on the eastern side of the Herd. Because of how far Logan had run to get to his friend, the walk back was uneventful and short. He'd just unlocked the door when he heard it: the same scream of the siren that alerted him to the danger he was in not thirty minutes ago. Followed by another very different scream, one coming from a human.
Logan froze to his spot, but Aly had other plans. She sprinted into the apartment, dragging Logan inside by the collar of his stupid trashy shirt and closed the door behind him. By the time Logan's brain caught up to the situation at hand, his backpack had been snatched by the little blonde and filled with supplies including ration boxes, spare clothes, and water bottles.
"What are you doing?" He asked dumbly.
"What do you think?" She answered without looking back, still digging through his drawers. "I'm packing your shit so if something happens, we can run. Now tell me where in blue blazes did your hunting knife go?"
Logan wordlessly walked to the bedroom and pulled out a long sheathed blade out from under his mattress, strapping the hilt to his jeans. He pulled out a spare backpack and started to follow suit with Aly, packing up the rest of the ration boxes and spare water as well as a few choice clothing items just in case. By the time he was done packing, Aly had changed out of her bright colored clothing and into a tan t-shirt he swore was in his closet only a few minutes ago.
"So now what? We just wait for the Infected to bust in?" Logan hiked the backpack higher and fastened a strap across his chest.
"No. Now, we make for the center of the city." Logan flinched at the deep undertone of the girl's voice. Aly's voice had never been so serious. It frightened him a bit.
"Shouldn't we make for the wall if we're trying to survive this?"
"No, because the minute one gate is breached, all the gates go into lockdown mode and we'll be trapped anyways. In the center of the city, we can run any direction we need. We won't end up cornered."
Logan nodded, still processing their current situation and watching absently as Aly wandered around the room for extraneous items to throw into her now oversized bag. Once she seemed happy with what she packed, she drew out a small switchblade and moved towards the door. He followed behind her, so close they were practically melted into one another, and placed a hand on the doorknob.
Logan knew the plan she had spelled out for them – get outside, run to city square in the center of the Herd and wait it out until the sirens stopped or they were told it was safe again, fight off any Infected with the blades if necessary, survive – but as soon as the door opened, the plan flew out the window and to the wind.
There, just a few meters away, was an Infected. Not the same Infected that either of them had seen earlier that day. This one was a woman with pale skin wearing a baggy brown dress. Blood had poured from her nose and dried long ago, staining her skin an inky reddish black color resembling black beans. The only difference was the eyes. While the Infected at the gate couldn't seem to maintain eye contact and seemed docile, this Infected, as soon as Aly and Logan opened the door, turned abruptly and stared at the two of them and made to pounce.
The moment it took one step towards them, Aly ran to the right towards the city center, but the Infected didn't seem to care for her and turned its attention to Logan, whose millisecond of hesitation deemed him a better source of food. Logan ran, to the east.
Logan kept running until his lungs burned and his legs ached, but he couldn't stop. Every street he passed, he heard screams and growls and the sound of pounding footsteps and gunfire. He could smell blood in the air, hear the Infected still chasing after him hot on his tail, feel the beating of his heart like a drum. Adrenaline rushed through him like a drug and he was an addict begging for just one more dose.
By the time he got to the eastern gate, he realized with horror that Aly was right: the place was locked down tight. A biometric scan could get him through the gate as it would prove he was not infected, but with the Infected chasing after him, he couldn't risk the gate opening and putting anyone else between the Walls in danger. He'd have to fight them off first, lest he force others to have to deal with them later. Turning his back to the gate as soon as the scan completed, he drew the knife and readied himself for a fight.
There were three Infected whose hungry eyes zoned in on him and pounced forward. With a shout, Logan pounced to meet them. The first grabbed his shoulders with a surprising amount of strength and ducked its head to chew on his neck, but before it could get that far, Logan thrust his blade through its mouth as deep as he could manage it. Its grip loosened and he shoved it off, just in time for the second and third Infected to join the fray. He quickly disposed of the second Infected with a slash to the neck, but the third was infuriatingly persistent.
He heard the gate finally opening behind him, which gave him the extra boost of adrenaline his junkie body needed. The third managed to launch itself at Logan and tackle him to the ground, attempting to sink its teeth into his juicy neck. Logan planted both hands on its eyes, wrapping his hands around its head and pushed it away with all his strength, which granted was not much. He kicked the Infected off his body and rolled backwards towards the gate, pleased to find it had been opened already. On shaky legs, he stood up and faced the Infected as it ran towards him again. With the rest of his strength, Logan front-kicked it in the chest, launching it backwards several feet just as the gate closed on the Herd and he was left in between the Walls.
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