Broken Silence

A World Alone

I shoot upright and sprint across the hall. Kara is laying on the floor outside the bathroom. She's trembling and covering her face with shaking hands.

"Kara...? What happened?" I ask.

She shudders and points to the closed bathroom door. I look at her and then the door. I step forward and grasp the cold metal doorknob and turn it.

I know why she screamed.

A dead body, or in this case a living dead body sits in the bathtub. It's a woman, she once had blond hair, but now it's shredded and blood stained. Her throat has a gaping wound that festers with something gooey. She also has no leg.

"Oh my god." I whisper. She moves.

I back out of the room and tap Kara on the shoulder.

She looks at me, confused, them at the woman.

"Pass...me...a knife..." I whisper.

She gets up slowly and cautiously zips open her backpack, creating a bit more noise than I'd hoped.

The flesh-eater snarls, slapping itself around the bathtub, trying to stand. Her white eyes pierce mine and she bares her teeth.

Kara digs around her backpack frantically.

"I can't find one!" She exclaims.

She tosses the bag aside and looks around the room. She clenches her fists and bites her lip. She runs to my room before I can say anything.

It's just me and the zombie, temporarily anyways.

The zombie somehow manages to flip herself out of the tub and is slowly crawling towards me.

"Kara!" I call, "Hurry!"

"I'm coming...I just....Found one!" She answers.

She enters the room with my kitchen knife. She plunges it into the woman's head without hesitation. It's body flops to the floor.

"Well that was fun." She says sarcastically.

I look at her skeptically, "If it's that easy to stab them in the head, why'd you freak out?"

She frowns slightly, "I dunno. It just caught me by surprise."

Kara doesn't really seem to be the 'scaredy cat' type.

I nod and look down. "Well, I'll see you in a bit. Im gonna take a nap." I say.

"Okay..." Kara says, a bit of a confused look in her eyes.

I take one last look at the dead woman and walk out of the room.

"Wait!" Kara calls after me.

I turn around to find her holding out the knife.

"Don't...don't forget this..." She says.

"Thanks." I say, grabbing the knife.

I look at her and she looks back.

"Wanna know something, Cassie?" She asks suddenly.

I don't know what to do so I say, "Sure."

Kara hesitates. "I only met you, like, yesterday, but I just wanted to tell you that your a great friend."

It takes me a second to let that sink in, but when it does, I don't quiet understand. We just met. How am I good friend?

"Thanks, Kara. Your a great friend too." I say instead.

She smiles and looks away.

"Cassie...." She says.

"Umm, yeah?"