Zomb-Pocalypse 3

Chapter Thirteen

I'm woken by a rough shake to the shoulder and I blink and look blearily around. "You should've let her sleep." I hear my Mom chastise someone, and then I hear Silas' signature grunt.

"She'd want to be awake for this." He says and even though I'm half asleep, I grin. It's so nice to have someone who doesn't treat me like an invalid.

"He's right Mom." I say as I stretch, I'm a little stiff. "What do I want to be awake for?" I ask, realizing I have no idea what they're even talking about.

"The sun is coming up." Silas tells me and I perk up. He's right, of course I want to be awake when we can finally see what we're facing. I can't believe I fell asleep, but I guess my body probably crashed from the adrenaline rush of playing zombie tag in the front yard.

The blast of a gun firing draws my attention to the window. "That guy is still alive?" I ask in surprise and my Dad nods.

"He's been firing all night long, I'm surprised you slept through it." Dad says and I walk over and give him a hug, and I'm thankful when he hugs me back after only a small moment of hesitation.

"Did you get any sleep?" I ask and my Dad shakes his head.

"What about you?" I ask Silas and get another shake–apparently I am the minority here. I look around and see Abby and Sunny curled up on the bed together asleep. Barry is sitting on one of the air mattresses, but he isn't sleeping. He's staring off into space.

"It's almost time." Ryan says, from the window and we all gather around and watch as the dark sky begins to fade to a light gray. The bright orange, and pink sunrise is beautiful , but the scene that it illuminates below isn't.

Zombies are everywhere, mostly gathered around a cabin a few houses down and I'm surprised that the press of bodies hasn't collapsed the wood yet. There are several figures on the roof and as the sun comes up and they can finally see what they're doing, their shooting starts in earnest. We all stand and watch as zombies start to fall left, right, and center.

They are making a dent, but it's a small one. There has to be at least four hundred zombies out there. "That is a huge hoard." Silas mutters and I have to agree with him.

"Do we have enough bullets?" I ask, and Silas looks thoughtful.

"We should." He says.

"The problem here will be getting them before they get us." Regg says, breaking in on the conversation. "That many zombies can cause a lot of damage. They can break in here by sheer force, and then we would be screwed. We need to make sure we have a solid plan before we make a move."

I watch the figures on the roof blasting away in desperation and shiver. "I don't think we should wait too long." I warn them, and the grim look on everyone's face tells me that we are all aware of the time crunch.

Having all this time to think is so much worse than the usual, see a zombie and fight for your life, situation. Usually the adrenaline has kicked in and you don't know how stupid what you are about to do is, but sitting here waiting to fight four hundred zombies, feels like we've been handed down a death sentence.

"Almost all of the zombies have migrated over to the other cabins." Regg hesitates. "We could have time to get into the vehicles and leave." He says and I frown.

We all think about that for a moment. I personally don't want to leave the cabin. It's no longer safe, but it's our home, besides I doubt we will find a place that is any safer. Nothing is safe anymore, and what would it say about our humanity if we just abandoned our neighbors to die. We never met them, but they are human beings.