Broken Silence

Shoot Happens

My heart speeds up, adrenaline mingled with fear. My heart does a flip flop and explodes out of my chest.

I slowly look up at Mitch, or rather the barrel of his gun that wavers inches from my face.

My eyes wash over with salty tears.

"Mitch..." I choke out, balling up my fists, "No, no. Please no. We don't have to-"

"Duck." He says monotonously.

"What?" I say, my voice soft like the tiny snowflakes the float down around us. The ground slowly gets painted over with the icy precipitation. The greenish-yellow dead grass is washed away in a sea of white.

"Duck." Mitch repeats.

His eyes are fierce, blazing even.

"Duck? What do you-" I start.

"Now."

I bite my lip and brush away my shameful tears.

"Now." Mitch instructs.

I fall to my hands and knees, the snow scratching at my uncovered skin like tiny little razor blades. My dark sweater now looks abstract; dotted with white.

I close my eyes, waiting for Mitch to shoot me.

I think about everything we've been through. Me, Leo, Kara, Mitch and I guess you could count Shaun and Lynn, but both if them are gone, mentally and physically.

Shaun's probably gone haywire by now, if he's even alive.

Kara and Leo are hopefully hidden from that bastard Snake Eyes. I wonder where Snakey ran off to after he pummelled me and left me to die in the decaying hands of my own mother? Maybe he died. Hopefully he died.

Oh, and what about that old man Einstein? And the rest of the Contaminators? Megan and Sara are dead. I wonder if any other ones died.

I wonder where my mom is. My dad. My friends from before this stupid apocalypse. My teachers. My classmates, I mean, I had a normal life. But then one morning, boom! Everything changed and-

My thoughts are interrupted by a noise so loud that I am one hundred percent sure that I've shattered my eardrums.

I fall, I think, and now I'm lying down. The snow comforts me like a soft pillow. My vision blurs a bit.

"Cassie!" Mitch's voice calls. But it's almost dreamlike. "Get up, Cassie!"

I blink my eyes and the feeling passes. Mitch stands over me and grabs my shoulders.

He yanks me to my feet and hands me a gun. I look down at it, and then up at him.

"Don't think. Just shoot." He says.

I take a breath and do as he says.

Right behind me, when I turn around, is a zombie. It lay in the snow with a bullet between its eyes. Black blood oozes into the snow and stains it dark.

Gross. But I guess that's what Mitch shot.

"Cassie, shoot something," Mitch says, "if you haven't noticed, we're being surrounded by creatures with water for brains and dust for hearts. So shoot 'em."

I lick my lips, which have became annoyingly chapped, and raise my gun.

The first flesh eater that falls into my line of fire is an old man. An old, familiar man. Einstein, from the Contaminators.

A smirk creaks up my face as I watch the old fool stumble around. His left arm is missing and his straggly hair is doused with black liquid.

I clench my teeth and fire a single bullet into his face.