Author's Note

My Internet has been shut off for the past two weeks this Monday, so I have not been active here very much, and won't be until we get the Internet back on.

Hopefully, you can enjoy this. However, I'm extremely compelled to cancel this story and turn it into a story off-site with different named characters and settings, but the concept being the same.

Or, maybe I'll continue it and adapt it simultaneously. It all depends on if people give a damn about this story anymore already.

Meadows (3)

The next morning, my group and I started for the cars parked at the front of the school. While on most days, we would typically walk to make less noise, the neighborhood we were hitting was on the other side of the city.

The place was Sunny Meadows, one of the few gated communities around Canterlot. Rumor had it that these communities survived because of just that. A couple of them had been overrun in recent months, and there were plenty of supplies to keep us going for a while. While we hoped somebody would be there, we were expecting the place to be deserted.

Soarin was leading our group today. I had gotten along well with Soarin over the past two months, more so than the other leaders. While I didn't consider him my friend yet, we had each other's back.

Soarin got in the driver seat, while I put my things in the passenger seat. The other five got in the back of the pickup truck, and the rest of our group took another car.

As I was getting ready, Dash came outside and over to me, looking in the direction of the Meadows, barely visible from here.

"Do you think anyone's there?" she asked me.

I shook my head. "If the other two were a warning, I don't think we should be expecting another group... at least, not for a while."

She gave a subtle hum of indifference. Her smile then appeared and she looked at me.

"Are you forgetting anything?"

I looked around the truck, through my backpack, and everywhere else I could. After, I shook my head.

"I don't think so."

At first, the girl frowned at me slightly, but she quickly caught on.

"You're an ass," she said, giggling. I grabbed her and pulled her close, letting out a laugh of my own.

"Happy birthday, Dashie." I then pulled her closer and whispered, "I'll give those stores a look and see what I can find, okay?"

"Okay," she whispered back, letting out another giggle.

I pulled away from her and got into the passenger seat. Soarin turned the key and the car sprung to life, a full tank of gas. We had to use it carefully.

Dash walked up to the open window and gave me a kiss.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

The moment before I went out for runs was worse to say that. But I smiled and gave her a wave goodbye as the car drove away. She didn't need to know that.

On the drive to the Meadows, Soarin spoke to me.

"You're really lucky, you know that?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

We didn't talk so much. I spent a few minutes twiddling with the knob for the radio, but all that came out was static.

"You won't get anything, you know."

"Yeah, I... I know." I pressed the button, and the radio shut off. "I used to play the radio every day on the way to school. I guess a part of me's still hoping for that. That, or something else."

"Like?"

"Well... people. Good people. Someone out there who's trying to get by. Maybe another group."

"If there was one around here, we would've noticed by now."

"Yeah... maybe further out? The hills, probably?"

"Maybe. We haven't exactly left the city to find that out."

"... Do you think there are other groups near us?"

"A little. But it's like we're the only ones around here that didn't get eaten, y'know?"

I didn't want to tell him that he didn't know that, but over the months, that thought started to feel more like fact than opinion. How many people really were left? In the city, in the state, the country? The world? Was there that one chance that we were the last of...

No. Not so soon.

Between the debris and the occasional infected, we reached Sunny Meadows in ten minutes. When we pulled up to the front gate, the only entrance to the neighborhood, we noticed that it was chained up with a padlock.

We all eyed each other, expecting the worst. When I gave the metal gate a decent sounded knock, that's when they came out from their homes.

All walkers. No runners. This place fell months ago.

The infected shambled their way over to the gate and planted their bodies against it, holding out their arms in an attempt to grab us, and making hisses and snarls at us with rotting vocal cords.

"Guughhh..."

"Grraahh!"

"Ready?" Soarin asked, holding out a long hunting knife.

We all nodded and held out our own individual weapons. With a stance, we got to work clearing the dead while watching our own surroundings.

A few minutes later, the dead were truly dead this time. We gave a few more knocks on the gate to be safe, but no more Infected came out. We didn't think we were fully in the clear, and Soarin told us to keep an eye out as we broke the padlock and opened the gates.

We took our first steps into the community, only a couple of us having actually been here before. The neighborhood consisted of fourteen houses, many of them with their doors still closed and windows intact.

Many of the dead were likely still inside most of them.

"Okay, here's what we're gonna do," Soarin began, pointing to me. "You four will take this house here. You four will take that house, you four there, and you three come with me. If any of you get into trouble, yell or come find me. Let's meet back here at the entrance in twenty minutes. Sound good?"

Everyone nodded almost in unison. With that, we split off into our respective groups and started for the houses.

I hardly knew two of the kids in my group, but the third one I knew. Rumble, Thunderlane's younger brother, was the only member of his known family that survived up to now. Thunder... He didn't die in the most heroic circumstance, but we refused to tell that to Rumble.

We walked up to the front door and peered through the windows to see what we could. As we did, Rumble grabbed for the knob.

"No, wait," I said, stopping him. "Knock."

He shook his head and apologized before knocking on the door for a moment. We waited for a minute and talked to pass the time.

"How much stuff do you think is here?" Rumble asked.

I answered, "Not sure. But with that gate having been locked up this whole time, there'll be something, at least."

"I bet there's a lot of stuff here," one of the others mentioned, a girl named Honey Crisp. She was sixteen and was always so eager to go out and explore, and today, she saw the chance.

"I guess it all depends on how long it took for everyone here to turn," I told her. "If they all turned early on and didn't have any time to scarf anything down, we could find enough to keep us going for another year, at best."

"Wow, really?"

"Maybe. Hopefully. But I also guess it depends on if they stockpiled beforehand."

"Rugggh...!"

Sierra—the other kid, a seventeen year old—recoiled away from the front door she leaned against, as the sound of an Infected behind it was muffled, but clear. The corpse weakly bashed its hands against the glass as an attempt to get to us, but was far too rotten to do so.

"Okay," I began, "when I say 'now,' you open the door, and I'll take care of it. Ready?"

Rumble and Honey nodded their heads; Rumble had his hand firmly on the doorknob, while both of them had their own weapons out in case. I brandished my own hunting knife, holding it tightly in my hand, and let out a deep breath.

"Now."

The door was opened—a part of me thought it would've been locked. A few seconds passed before the walker shuffled his way over to the doorway, moaning and growling as he caught me in his sights.

"Gnnaagh—"

With a firm swing, the knife was lodged deep inside the skull of the Infected, killing it almost instantly. The body went limp and fell to the ground beside me. After a firm pull, the knife came out. It took me a long time to be able to do it so quickly, as did everybody else.

"Okay, wait another moment," I said to them, anticipating more Infected to come out and surprise us, but after several moments passed, no dead came walking out. "Alright, it's clear. Stick together, and don't split off. Got it?"

Everyone nodded together. It was the best thing about being the more known member of the community; people trusted me and were more enticed to listen—that last part was absolutely necessary these days.

The four of us went inside the dark home which, despite the circumstances, looked rather quaint, like the apocalypse never seemed to reach it. However, the smell made all the difference. We closed the door behind us and began to look around.

"Oh, god," Sierra moaned, "I'm never gonna get used to the stench."

I laughed. "It shows you haven't been out here too long."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"How many runs have you done outside the school?"

"This is my third time," she answered.

"This is my hundredth," I said back. "I think. It could be more. The point is, I've smelled more than enough rotting flesh to get used to it for the rest of my life... I never thought I'd be saying that. Never crossed my mind back then.

"Anyway... you'll get used to it in time—even if you don't want to."

Sierra's expression changed with my words, but she ultimately nodded in understanding. After a minute of exploring the house, we came across the kitchen and decided on positions.

"Okay: Sierra, you take point in the doorway; if anything comes near you, let us know. The rest of us will search the cabinets."

Sierra walked over to the doorway, knife in hand, while the rest of us walked around, looking through each individual cabinet for whatever we could find. To say that we found food was more than an understatement.

"Holy shit, you were right," I said to Honey. "There's all kinds of food here. There has to be weeks' worth in here!"

"You too. They probably got so much and... well, you know, soon after."

Sierra turned and looked to the stockpile that we found, listening in. "If the kitchen here's any indication, the others must be just as lucky."

"If that's the case, then we could last another year with these houses alone," I replied.

We spent a few minutes grabbing all of the cans and bags that were there until all of the cabinets were picked clean. Several cans of green beans, corn, beef, even peas—I doubted most of the kids back at the school would be eating any of the peas.

As we were putting the food in our bags, Rumble grabbed some of the cans and put them in an extra bag that he had been carrying... It belonged to...

"Rumble?" I spoke up. "What're you doing there, bud?"

"Getting something for Thunder. He likes the Spam."

Honey opened her mouth to say something, but I whispered at her to let him go. Rumble zipped up his bags and walked out into the living room, where Sierra had gone to keep watch.

"Does he... Does he know at all?" Honey asked. "... I mean... about what really happened to—"

"No... he doesn't," I told her. "Let's keep it that way, okay?"

She was up-to-date on everything that happened between the community and Thunder. What he did. She gave a firm nod and the two of us left it at that, and we went back into the living room with the others.

"Okay," I said as I brought the three of them close, "we've got at least ten minutes left. We'll do a quick sweep of the upstairs and downstairs. Try to find the bathrooms. If they had a lot of food, then chances are they have a lot of medicine. Rumble and Honey, you two take the downstairs. Stick together and be careful. Sierra and I will take the upstairs. If you get into trouble, holler and we'll be there as quick as we can. Sound good?"

"Yeah," Honey said with a hopeful grin. Sierra and Rumble nodded.

With our group split up, we separated into the parts of the house we assigned. As we went up the stairs and knocked on each individual hallway door, the two of us talked to pass the time.

"So how are you and that Dash girl getting along?"

"I mean, we're dating, so I'd say it's pretty good."

She laughed, a blush on her face. "Sorry, bad start."

"It's fine. I've done that a couple times before with other people," I laughed.

We reached the end of the hallway, and heard nothing but silence, so we proceeded to open each door to find the bathroom until we picked the right door. When we found the bathroom, we started to look in the cabinets. While there wasn't a massive stockpile like the food, there was still plenty of it to treat the people back home for months—and we already had a year plus' worth of medicine. But the more the merrier.

As we started to load our bags with the medical supplies, Sierra started a new conversation.

"Do you still think the world's intact out there? I mean, I hear you talk about it all the time, and you're always hoping with that radio station being fixed up..."

"... Not always," I answered. "I mean, I definitely want to believe it—that the attacks in those other countries were false and it was just America that fell apart. Maybe that's why all those people who took off for the ocean never came back, you know?"

"And yet it's been five months since anything came up from the rest of the world."

"I know. That's why I don't want to believe it as often anymore. But it keeps me going in a sense, you know? Whether I'm right or I'm wrong, I've got a reason to fight."

Sierra gave off a radiant smile, both from my explanation and her finding a small set of antibiotics. Those were practically gold nowadays. However, the school needed it more than any money-hungry beggar out there.

After a moment of silence, my watch began to beep. "We've got five minutes. Better wrap things up and get the others."

"Alright."

As soon as she said that, we were done with our scavenge, and proceeded downstairs to the first floor. We entered the hallway that Honey and Rumble walked down into. They had taken the same precautions as we had, with the doors all opened. Halfway down was where the doors stopped opening, and we heard the familiar noise of scrounging objects into bags.

It didn't take us long to find the first floor bathroom, to find Honey and Rumble putting medicine into their bags. Smiles were on their faces, and laughter emitted from them too.

It was the first time I saw Rumble laugh in a while.

I gave the doorway a couple of gentle knocks. They were startled, but otherwise kept their cheerful mood.

"Everything okay down here?" I asked.

"Yup!" Honey exclaimed. "Rumble found the bathroom no problem."

"Any trouble?" asked Sierra.

"Just a few of them," Rumble answered, pointing to the tub containing two corpses. "I took care of them, though."

Sierra and I looked on in surprise.

"... On your own?"

He nodded, and I gave him a smile.

"Good work."

Rumble smiled back as he put the last of the supplies in his backpack and equipped it on his back.

We walked over to the door and took a peak out the window. Sure enough, the other groups were getting together outside. I opened the door and the four of us started for the others.

Soarin quickly saw us and asked what our haul was. When we showed him, he was a mix of surprised and not surprised.

"Same here," one kid said.

"Here too," another called out.

"It's starting to look like this trip was worth it," Soarin stated with a smile. "We've still got a while. We can check out the rest of the houses at this rate."

"What about our bags?" Sierra asked. "We won't be able to fit anything else like this."

"I borrowed bags from the other groups. They're letting us use them today. That being said, if you find a backpack or a dufflebag in any of these houses, bring it with you. The more, the better."

Everyone put their full bags into the beds of the vehicles and grabbed a new set. We then split off into the same groups and started for the other houses.

To our surprise and fortune, our house was entirely devoid of bodies, living or dead. It was in a somewhat worse condition than the other, with a few tables or shelves toppled or smashed. Otherwise, there was no danger.

The first obvious room we went for was the kitchen. Just like the other house, there was a plentiful cache of canned goods. Everyone was in a much better mood now that we knew what to expect. To keep the atmosphere that way, we had conversations about anything that was on our minds. Our favorite sports, television show, comics, whatever. If it had value, it was talked about.

"I used to be a big fan of this one zombie show," Sierra mentioned, but sighed. "Kind of ironic, in its own way."

"How so?" Honey asked, seemingly unaware of what the word meant.

"Before this all started, we used to watch zombies on TV, talk about how unrealistic it'd be. Then suddenly... they're right in our backyards. I remember some friends of mine talking about how well they'd survive something like this, how prepared they'd be. And yet, when they realized they had to kill corpses of their mother or father or girlfriends... boyfriends... and they couldn't... well, you know."

"It's easier to say things about fictional shit than it is to act on real shit," I told her.

"Yeah... I guess. But you'd think with how dedicated they were to the whole thing, you'd think they would've sharpened up before then."

"Nobody knew this was coming. Nobody ever thought corpses would start getting up and eating people for real one day."

"Yeah... you have a point there... still."

The feeling in the air was cool, and I thought of something that could potentially lift the mood.

"Here's a little prompt for you guys: If the apocalypse never happened, where do you think you would be right now?"

"Seeing as how it's August... probably enjoying the rest of summer vacation," Sierra answered.

"I miss watching cartoons every week," Honey added.

Rumble took a moment before he answered the question.

"I miss Thunder... so I guess hanging out with him."

I gave him a smile. As much as we knew he would say that, it was something we wished we could do with a lot of people. Parents, siblings, spouses... in the past few months, especially spouses.

As we wandered from room to room finding supplies, Honey went back to talking about cartoons.

"I used to watch this one cartoon about a robot going to summer camp. It was... silly... but I liked it. They announced the third season back in January, and I got so excited. And then a month later... Is it... bad that even after everything, I'm still totally upset that there'll never be a third season?"

"You're talking about Camp Robo, right?" Sierra turned, genuinely curious.

"Yeah!"

"Damn, I loved that show. Don't we have the first two seasons back at the school?"

"Yeah, I brought them with me. I thought I was gonna go to my Aunt Crystal's... but then the army took us to the school."

"And then abandoned us," Rumble mumbled, though I was the only one to hear it. I turned to the girls.

"Isn't that show Japanese?" They both nodded. "You know, last I heard, Japan never confirmed any cases in their country. Who knows... maybe they continued the third season and it's available there."

The idea made Honey feel like a kid on Christmas. "I hope!"

I looked at Sierra to see her smiling at me. I shot her a hopeful shrug. Even when she doubted the world was alive, she knew that the hope kept me going, and maybe it'd do the same for others. Honey couldn't stop thinking about what the third season would be like, but she knew that she shouldn't entirely get her hopes up. She's a smart girl.

After a slightly longer time than usual, we cleared out the house and returned to the group.

"Okay, we've got a few more houses to clear, and then we'll hit the nearby areas. Sound good?" Everyone nodded. "Good."

A moment later, Soarin urged me and a few other legal teens over to him.

"There's something you guys need to see."

The three of us followed Soarin to wherever he had been leading us. At first, we weren't sure if it was an overexaggeration. But when we actually got there...

"Holy shit," one of the guys, Cloud, said in amazement. "Is that..."

"Yeah!" Soarin exclaimed. "It's a goddamn military outpost! And look what I found."

Soarin walked over to a nearby container and pulled out a suppressed AR-15.

"There's more where this came from."

He walked over to the nearby tent and flicked a flashlight into it. There were bodies scattered all over the inside, but there was no dead danger.

The tent was full of containers similar to the one beside us. As we opened them up, we saw enough weapons to support this entire neighborhood and then some.

"Jesus H," said Cloud. "There has to be enough here for everyone at the school. I mean, not that we're gonna give this to the kids, but..."

"The younger kids, no," I replied to him, "but the teens...?"

"No," Soarin almost instinctively said. "I'm not saying I don't trust them, but the leaders of the group are better off handling them."

"Obviously... for now. But when we can, we should train them."

The other leader, Flow, spoke up. "We can talk about this once we can get these back. Well, whatever we can get."

"We've still got some houses left, and we've still got hours of daylight. We can definitely get all this back home. The others are gonna flip."

"I think Twilight's gonna need an extra pair of hands for all the food," I joked.

"I'll help," Cloud added. "I never help her enough. Not sure what she'll be more: pissed or thrilled for all the food."

"Both."

He laughed. I didn't know Cloud most, be he definitely had a bright personality, that much I knew.

We spent the next several minutes collecting all the guns, having to go back a few times because there were so many to carry in both hands.

As we walked back on the first run, we informed the rest of the group of the rest of the stockpile and had them go back. In a few minutes, the tent was cleared of all guns, grenades, batons, and whatever we could.

In the right hands, we'd be safe. In the wrong hands, who knows?

Soon after, we did one more sweep to make sure we cleared out the entire neighborhood. Once that was out of the way, we got into our vehicles and drove off, leaving the Meadows behind in the dust.

But it brought up an idea in me.

"We should send people out here," I said to Soarin, who asked what I meant by that. "The neighborhood. Large, metal fence, one way in, a couple dozen houses... Infected won't be getting in there."

"We didn't close the gate, did we?"

"Oh... no." I shook it away. "It'll be fine. If they get in, it won't be much. They're all in the city at this point."

"Yeah... but for how long?"

The question brought up a point. There was no way there were any survivors left in downtown at this point. Sooner or later, they'd migrate outward. If they found the school as it is right now, before we can even get a wall up...

"We can use the neighborhood as a fall back point. If the school gets overrun, we can just head there."

"But will the houses be able to fit us all?"

"We can check later, if that's alright," I suggested, to which he nodded. "More safe places we have, the better, especially if things go south one place."

Soarin nodded again in agreement, never taking his eyes off the road. Occasionally, he would turn the car left and right, dodging wrecked or burnt-out vehicles from during the outbreak. As he drove on, I pulled out the piece of paper that Dash had given me yesterday, showing the places she wanted me to look in for a gift.

Soarin noticed pretty quick, however.

"We're pretty close to those places," he stated. "If you want, we can head there first before we get back."

I looked at him and gave him a smile. I was worried he would oppose it, but he knew Dash, at least enough to care about—

*HONK*

I looked in the side mirror, and saw the driver and passenger of the other car motioning for us to stop and look up.

"What, what do they want?" Soarin asked as I looked up in the sky. My face went shock blank.

"Stop the car."

Noticing my immediate change in tone, Soarin braked the truck, prompting the car behind us to stop too. Once the vehicles were completely still, me, Soarin, and everybody else looked up into the sky.

It didn't take long for the sound to echo in our ears—but the sight alone was enough to make Soarin question.

"Is... is that..."

We watched as the parachute opened beneath the plane, and a crate started its way to Earth.

"Yeah. It's a fucking airdrop."