I slipped on a puddle of scarlet as I ran closer to Jerry, despite his screams telling me not to. My knee dipped down into the wet, and my left arm came up to slash at a zombie throwing itself at me. I dropped down and stayed still for a second. A group of zombies continued past me. The screams of the gang members made my ears ring.

After a three count, I got back up. My knee was throbbing slightly, and I couldn’t see Jerry. Blood dripped into my eyes, everything was a loud red blur. Something swiped at my face, I ducked and slid to the right. I brought my machete up with my left arm and tried wiping some of the blood away from my eyes using my right. My watch clinked against my glasses. The something was stepping closer to me, its fingers seemed to be trying to claw at me. I swiped at it wildly, my eyes burning and my teeth gritted. The thing had me stumbling backwards. My heels hit a crate, and I went toppling over.

Immediately, something stood over me, and a shot went off. A different kind of ringing resonated in my ears, this was more bell-like than the electric whine that I usually get. The gate started creaking shut. I could just barely hear it. The something standing over me stepped to the side.

“Oliver, can you hear me?” Nestor. I sighed and nodded. “Ok, that’s great, can you stand?” I paused. I felt relatively ok, ignoring my ears, chest, head, knee, and hand. Maybe I wasn’t ok. “Well, I don’t have time to wait, let's go, Buddy.” Nestor grabbed my arm and helped me start to stand up. I was woozy the second my head lost contact with the ground. We started walking away, Nestor holding me upright, when I looked back to see what had been clawing at me. I almost slipped out of Nestor’s grasp.

Half of Jerry’s face was still attached to his head, the rest of it was in mushy bits and pieces in a two-foot radius. I could tell from looking at his eyes, even at this distance, that he had turned into a zombie, but it didn’t make my pain lessen. My heartstrings felt like they were going to break. Jerry tried to kill me, but it’s my fault he ended up dead. I should have tried to stop Nestor from opening the gate, I should have avoided the blood puddle, I should have gotten to Jerry sooner. I should ha-

“Kid, I know that Jerry was your friend and meant a lot to you, but we have to keep on going. There are still zombies in the camp, and we need to kill as many as possible before too many of our own are dead.” I nodded. My tongue felt like cotton. Nestor gripped me tighter and we continued.

His gun blasted off, hitting freaks in the head every time he pulled the trigger. I pointed out who needed help, but after seeing so many people die and watching Nestor kill the newly turned zombies and the old, I lost my voice. The sirens eventually turned off. Nestor had let me out of his grasp, I stayed close to him and killed a few zombies with my machete, but a rising panic was growing in my chest. Jerry died, how many others? Bob, Jay, Margaret, Joey, Roy, Rosie, Jack? Emery? I don’t know what I would do if Emery died, but it wouldn’t be good. I needed to find them. I needed to find her. I couldn’t let her die, not like how I let Jerry die.

“Nestor-” He whipped around and shot right over my head. I looked and saw that a freak was less than a foot away from me. It was startling that I had no idea and that I didn’t care. “Oh. Well, I need to find my group. They could be lost or hurt, and I need to know if they’re ok.” Nestor shook his head.

“You couldn’t hear the zombie right behind you, and I don’t trust you by yourself. We need to find Neo and Connie. He was taking her to the farther edges of camp to look at a new place to live. They wanted a quiet place for the baby.”

“But I need to find my people, I understand that you want to find your brother, but that’s how I feel about my people. And what if the med ward got attacked? Don’t they need help there?”

“Gary and Raymond are already there with Darcy. Arthur has the apartments covered, and some guards are stationed at the canteen. The outskirts are where we could lose a lot of people. The sirens can’t always be heard there, and Neo’s hearing is almost as bad as yours. I was also told to keep you alive, so that’s what I intend to do.” I pointed my machete towards him, white-hot anger was throbbing in my temple.

“Then why did you open the gate? You’ve killed so many people by doing that, what made you think that was a good idea? Jerry is dead, and who knows who else of my friends is. I blame you, if you wanted to keep people alive, then why did you do something so stupid? You know that the gates can’t close until they have been fully opened.” Nestor pushed the tip of my blade down. A deep frown graced his face, and his eyebrows became knitted together.

“We don’t turn anyone away. We don’t let anyone fall behind. That happened once before, and now Jack doesn’t have a father. You’re right, I should have thought of a better way to do it, but I wasn’t going to let that lady become a spectacle for my people.”

“You don’t have that many people left.” Nestor reached for his gun, his hands rested over the handle. My heart was pounding, but I think it was for the wrong reasons.

“Shut up. I liked you better when you were quiet and listened to everything I said. We’re-” We both turned to the shouting. Neo and Connie were running towards us. Well, Connie was waddling at a fast pace while Neo was holding her hand and trying not to drag her.

“Nestor! We heard the sirens! The outskirts are fine, but the fence is damaged! Connie needs to get to the med ward! Nestor, help!”

Nestor broke out into a sprint to reach his brother. Once Connie and Neo were closer, I could see that Connie was hurt. Her face was all scratched up, and her skin was terribly pale. Neo was limping and fumbling for Connie’s hand as Nestor scooped her up. Nestor started running towards me, running past and to the med ward. Neo trailed behind, gasping for breath and coming to a stop next to me. He was covered in sweat and clawing at his chest. I stooped down beside him and tried to get him upright. Air flows better if the person isn’t all curled in on themselves, or that’s what Emery would always tell me.

“Neo, what happened?” He grabbed my hand and looked at me, his eyes looked like a shattered mirror.

“We were looking at houses on the outskirts, when, when we saw a hole in the fence. I went through to investigate when it jumped, it jumped out. I got scratched, another went after Connie. I almost lost her. Oliver, I almost. Oh, Oliver!” Neo started crying, he rested his head on my shoulder and started sobbing and shaking. I rubbed his back as gently as I could. We stayed like this for a little too long. My legs started to cramp, and my head was throbbing. The ringing in my ears had lessened a bit, but something thick and sticky touched my hands when I pushed Neo away a bit. I looked at his shoulder, it was covered in bright, red blood. I fell back and scooted away. Neo looked up at me, over at his shoulder, and looked back at me.

I reached for my machete, my eyes locking with his. Neo just put his hands up and shook his head.

“I wasn’t bit! I fell into a thorn bush when the thing got on me, I swear. If I had been bitten, I would have turned by now. Oliver, please!” I let my raised arm fall to my side. He was right, if he was bitten, Neo would have turned by now. “Oliver, we need to get to the med ward. I think the zombie might have hurt the baby somehow, or she’s gonna get an infection from all the shit that’s on the freaks. We gotta go, come on.” He stuck his hand out towards me, I took it and let the blood staining his hand spread all over mine.