You Make Me Brave // Gally x OC

Chapter One:: Boots & Flashlights

"Oi, get off it will you?!" I yelled to the Crank slamming itself against my base's barbed wire barricade. "You're all driving me mad, the lot of you!"

The Crank growled gurgly in return. Sailor, my shepherd, whimpered at the sound. Not much of a protector really. Never has been.

The sweeper used to frighten him into hiding under the couch when he was a pup. Unless my brother was with him of course. My brother gave him the courage to be an actual guard dog. They were a team.

Until he was ripped away from us. I knew we shouldn't have moved to America. The disease creating the Cranks started across the ocean. Our parents sent us to America hoping it would protect us.

Within two years, the disease spread with global warming, carrying it in the condensated air in the clouds and in people as they traveled across the globe. What once started as a pandemic on one half of the world, ended up being the very end of the world as we knew it.

I unlatched the wooden board I'd attached to the wall, leaving a small opening enough for the nose of my gun to fit through. With three bullets to the head, the miserable undead creature was once again dead. Permanently.

Usually I would go out and retrieve the body of it and bury it, hide it, get rid of it somehow so it doesn't attract it's friends. But they're getting stronger. It's like the opposite of mortal life.

The longer the Cranks stumble around and wander, the younger, more agile, faster, and hungrier they get. Instead of growing older and eventually withering away like human life.

After locking up the gun hole once more, I retreated into the dog food aisle of the small convenience store I've been bunking in. Sailor was cautiously padding up to me, his head darting around in every direction.

I cracked open a can of dog food and set it on the tile in front of him. I grabbed a bag of peanuts from the neighboring aisle and sat with him so he didn't eat alone.

I pressed the sleeve of the jumper I was wearing to my nose, thankfully the scent hadn't faded from the dark turquoise fabric. It was dirty, ripped in a few spots, and the zipper didn't work. But it still smelled like him. My brother. Newt.

There isn't a day that passes I don't miss his cheeky grins and fittingly timed jokes and sarcasm. I have a tattoo on my left shoulder    that matches the one he had in the same spot. A sparrow. We both have one. Besides this jumper, it's the only thing I have left of him.

His hugs were my favorite.

They felt warm. Welcoming. Safe. I never had to ask to hug him. Whenever I needed one he either knew on in instant or I'd just hug him and he'd return the favor without hesitating in the slightest.

He'd only been with Sailor and I for a few months after we'd watched the world slowly turn to brain dead zombies. There wasn't anything on the television anymore. No newscastings to tell us what city was next on the radar for destruction. No entertainment of any kind.

Electricity went out a long time ago. Which means all of the perishable foods are gone. I remember finding a market not far from my base here. Sailor got excited finding a pack of beef tips and ingested every last one.

It was bad. He was throwing up for a week. And it scared me to death because I worried I'd be losing him too. One of the last pieces of normal life I have left.

Once Sailor and I finished eating, the sun began to sink into the horizon. Which meant it was time to do a perimeter check.

"Come on, then," I patted Sailor's head. "You know the drill. Hush down, find the bed. I'll be on the roof, but not for too long."