A Different Virus - Laura's Story

Chapter 23

I watched Diane as she subtly pointed and gave a few hand signals. I ran over to crawl under the hedge and picked up a metal pipe on the other side. I took it with me and quickly hid it behind the bench as Diane dodged Donovan who was pretending to be a zombie. Diane managed to work her way over and grab it before using to trip Donovan.

I giggled from the ladder that she had sent me up. Diane grinned up at me before turning to Rick, "Is there any other situation you can think of that we haven't covered?"

Rick shook his head, "Except for instances where you are in a serious fight, I think we have covered almost every other scenario. I will declare this a pass since she knew every hand signal."

I cheered from the top of the ladder before climbing down. Rick had trained both Diane and me the last two evenings. They would come up with a hypothetical scenario and then show me what they would most likely want me to do in each instance.

We covered everything from a zombie showing up to Diane having to break up a fight. From a fire breaking out to someone attacking the Fort. Diane would give me further instructions with hand signals if she needed me to do more.

I went to hold Diane's hand as she spoke with Rick. "The test is tomorrow, correct?"

Rick nodded, "Yes. We still have a couple of hours, so if you want we can grab a few Raiders and go to the zombie arena for some live practice."

Diane nodded, "Sure, let's go."

I quickly followed them out of the room. Before I knew it, I had my winter clothing on and eight Raiders walked with us through the snow. I held my breath in excitement as we went past the gate. The others seemed pretty relaxed.

Diane was her usual relaxed self as she kept glancing in all directions. Most Raiders and Foragers always glanced around. They were trained to be constantly alert and aware of their surroundings.

A while later I saw a wooden rail fence with obstacles inside of it. Diane spoke quietly, "We have several zombies in there. We are going to practice what we learnt in here. The Raiders are here just in case something goes wrong, but I doubt that anything will happen."

I inhaled in shock, she was going to use real zombies? I really hoped that I was ready for this. She noticed my nervousness and nodded to one of the Raiders, "Could you do a demonstration for Laura? Just so she gets used to seeing a real zombie move?"

The guy nodded easily. We approached the fence, but I didn't see anything inside. Perhaps the zombies escaped. That was fine by me. A lady jumped over the fence and started running to the side. The guy Diane had spoken to ran into the middle of the fence and waited. I watched in confusion before realizing that the lady was headed towards some odd cages.

She climbed on top and pulled a rope that opened up a door. A zombie wandered out. I hadn't seen one since I had been in my house. Well, I had seen them outside of the chain link fence surrounding the Fort, but I hadn't really watched them then.

It made me nervous, but I wasn't really scared of it. The guy walked to the side and the zombie spotted him. With a moan, it started shuffling towards him. It was a slow zombie, most of them moved faster than this one did.

I watched the guy lure it all over the obstacle course. Donovan had been faster than this zombie. I had been told to keep well out of their reach. They didn't want me close to the zombies, they just wanted me to be within sight to lure them around.

I took a deep breath to gather my courage and climbed over the fence. The Raiders spread out along the fence as Rick and Diane kept an eye on me. I waved and caught the zombie's attention. I jogged off to the side to make it run into pieces of strung rope.