Zombie Falls (A Gravity Falls Fan Fic)

Hope

I didn't know what was worse. The one being bitten and letting the virus attack their system, interrupting and disturbing the body, or being the one who watches it happen slowly as its host grows more and more mentally insane.

The problem with being the one who watches it happen is that there is nothing you can do. So I guess, in a way, the watcher becomes mentally insane too.

Mabel was getting worse.

She would go up and down the stairs and get winded. She stopped eating after she ate one afternoon and threw it up later. She slept hardly at all or stayed up the whole night, crying to me.

To top it off, Ford was already suspicious enough. He knew something was clearly wrong. Stan, however, knew it. He didn't say anything and kept his mouth shut. If he told Ford that Mabel was sick, Ford would go for his gun.

I took Mabel hunting with me when Ford told me I was ready. I wanted to get her out of the shack to stop raising the old man's suspicions. I needed to keep Mabel safe and have her with me. If I left her at the shack, I wouldn't trust that something horrible might not happen. I would never forgive myself.

Though my sister was anything, but enthusiastic about going out, I brought her with me anyway. I told her to keep her head up and convince Ford that she didn't look so sick as we walked out. She put on a fake smile and even waved as we left. Judging by his tiny but still present smile back, I think he bought Mabel's act.

As soon we we left, however, Mabel bumped into multiple trees and began to sob from the frustration of walking. At one point, she stopped behind me and wanted to rest. Little did I know that she was going to cease to vomit in the bushes of the woods when she did.

Being the distraught brother I was, I couldn't watch. I held her hair up for her but refused to look. It took her about five minutes to recover and catch her breath before she decided to get up again.

It had reached the point where I remained silent and didn't say anything. We both knew the outcome of this, yet didn't wish for it. Mabel was going to die out here. I guess the weird thing about humanity is that, even through the toughest, darkest, most deadliest things, we still hang onto one thing.

Hope.

I hoped for Mabel's own health that she would get better, not just for her sake, but for mine too. It was getting harder and harder to be the watcher. I had to be strong for Mabel, but how could I when she had to crouch behind a tree to throw up her entire meal?

Her virus was distorting her, but also affecting me. Without my own sister, I wouldn't know how to live anymore. Maybe I'd lay down on the ground and wait for the zombies to come for me and tear me apart. Anything really would be better than living without Mabel.

"Here." I handed her my only water bottle and let her have it. Wiping her dirty mouth with her wrist, she stared up at me with complete weariness and took it. The weight of the full water bottle in her hand made her hand drop to the ground as if the water bottle was an anchor. "Be quiet. And stay where I can see you." She nodded, weakly.

Setting aside my boiling concerns for my sister, I pulled my gun out of my backpack and found decent comfort behind a few crowded trees and bushes. The clouds in the sky were slim and the weather was perfect, yet my mind was on-edge and uneasy. If I didn't make it back with dinner, Ford would assume he was wrong about me.

Many minutes passed by as I just spent my time turning to Mabel and back around at my surroundings. I began playing with the Glock in my hand, taking out the barrel and clicking it back in. The woods was strangely soothing and silent, aside from Mabel's sobs that were getting lower in volume. Maybe the animals had all vanished after sensing something wasn't right. But, where could they have gone?

I stared down at the watch that Ford had given me that day so I could keep track of time. It was the late afternoon - four thirty, to be exact. After a half hour had passed me by, my squat turned into a normal sit up against a tree. I knew hunting would be slow-going and boring, yet my patience and easiness was thinning.

The sound of a screech of tires from a heavy vehicle nearby woke me from my daydream. In an instant, I was standing up and aware of two dark figures behind the treeline to my left. In their arms, they carried shotguns - and big ones.