The First 30 Days (PUBLISHED)

Twenty-Eight - Day 14

Fallon shook her head rapidly at my whisper, obviously not agreeing with me. Shawn looked out again, before turning back to face me.

"Are you sure, Bri?" We were a team, and had learned to trust each other in the short time that we'd known each other. Both of us would probably be dead by now if it wasn't for the other.

"No," I looked worriedly back outside. The people were still standing there, waiting for our response. "But I don't think we can turn them away."

"Ok." He raised his voice to be heard over the downpour. "Are you armed?"

The people looked at each other for a second before the big man answered. "We have two knives, a machete, a hatchet, and a gun."

The gun, in particular, was what I was most worried about.

I watched as the two remaining people moved closer. There was another woman, and the rail thin, tall figure seemed to be a teenage boy. They all looked miserable, soaked and exhausted. When I looked back to Shawn, I found him looking at me. He looked concerned, but I knew him. He wasn't likely to leave those people outside.

"We will open the door if you leave the gun outside." Until I had a chance to get to know them a little, I wasn't crazy about them having a weapon like that.

Out in the gloom, the burly man looked to the closest woman. They exchanged a few words, before he pulled a small handgun from under his jacket. Holding it up for us to easily see, he took the last steps under the overhang and set the weapon on the floor.

I jumped down off of my chair and went to the table. Shawn, and a frowning Fallon followed me, and the three of us pulled the table away from the door. Arranging ourselves just inside the door, nerves jangled just under my skin as Shawn began to open the door. It was a risk we were taking, letting the bigger group in.

The door swung open, revealing the group of people crowded under the overhang just on the other side.

The man was first. He glanced warily behind himself, before slowly stepping across the threshold. My first impression of him hadn't been wrong. The guy was huge in every way possible. The rain had matted his black hair to his head and he hadn't bothered to zip his jacket back up. He was already soaked clear through anyhow. Brown eyes darted around the cafeteria, taking in the three of us and looking for any hint of danger.

Behind him, the three others hurried inside, eager to get out of the rain, and probably to get to relative safety indoors. The one woman in particular stayed close to the man. She wasn't all that small, but compared to him, she looked tiny. When she stepped through the door, I noticed the hatchet in her hand that had been hidden by the weather. She clutched the weapon in a shaking hand, her own eyes searching the room.

The teenager looked like he was ready to drop where he stood. These people all were drawn and unhealthy looking, but the teen was by far the worst. His eyes were sunk back in his skull and a complexion that probably used to be tanned was too white. His clothes bagged on his frame as if he had lost a significant amount of weight. The final woman came up behind him and wrapped a supporting arm around his torso. She was the oldest member of the group. Even soaked from the rain, filthy, and tired, I could clearly see the grey that streaked her hair and the lines that had started to spread on her face.

"Stop! Are you bit?" Shawn's alarmed question had me searching for whatever he had seen that I had missed.

There. The leg of the teenager's pants was torn. It was hard to see, but the rain hadn't completely washed away all traces of the blood that had soaked through the material.

The man raised a placating hand. "It's not a bite. He got cut running from the zombies in that little town yesterday."

I looked warily at the teen. Seeming to sigh, he slowly leaned down and pulled the leg of his pants up. The wound underneath made me cringe. The gash was deep, and ran through the middle of his calf. They hadn't made any effort to treat it, maybe they didn't have any medical supplies to do so, and the skin around the wound was already turning an angry red. Open to contaminants like it was, it was only a matter of time before his leg became seriously infected.

"I'm Bill." The man told us when he saw that we were placated by seeing the teen's leg. "This is my wife, Maya, Carrie, and Devon." He gestured to the other three. "We've been walking for a while, now. Thanks for letting us in."

"I'm Shawn. This is Bri and Fallon." He didn't seem to know what else to say and he stopped there.

I jumped in when the silence threatened to become uncomfortable. "We have some basic medical supplies. I can take a look at your leg, if you want me to." I directed my statement to Devon.

He smiled weakly at me, "That would be great."

"Ok. I'll be right back." I hurried into the office with a backward glance at my people. In the supply closet, I pulled out everything that seemed like it would be helpful in treating such a serious wound. I was no doctor, but it looked to me like the teen could have really used a trip to a hospital. I hoped he had had his tetanus shot.

When I stepped back into the cafeteria, I found everyone sitting around the tables in a wary truce. No one looked comfortable, but at least Shawn and the newcomers were talking. Fallon sat slightly to the side of everyone else and she still didn't look all that happy with how things were working out. I didn't have time to worry about her at the moment. I wanted to get Devon's leg cleaned up the best we could and was eager to get back to Shawn. I didn't like leaving him essentially all alone to deal with the new people.

"Ok, let's see what we can do with these." I dumped my armload of supplies on the table and scooted a chair closer to the teen. He had used another chair to prop his leg up, and pulled his jeans above the wound again. Up close, the cut didn't look any better. Whatever he had sliced it on, must have been really sharp. There was one deep gash that went right into the muscle of his calf.

While I went to work on his leg, I listened to the conversation that I had interrupted with my entrance.

"We ran out of gas a few miles before the exit to that town. We thought that we would probably be able to find some somewhere and carry it back to the car, but as soon as we hit the main street, the zombies started coming from everywhere." Maya shuddered a little in remembrance. "We didn't know which way to go. I thought that it was going to be the end for us, but then we heard someone shouting at us. It was Devon, and he led us away from the zombies, but he got hurt. We ran into the woods and just kept on going."

"You just met them?" I questioned Devon as I tried to figure out how best to bandage his leg.

He nodded, "Yeah, yesterday. I was starting to think that I was the only one left alive in the whole town, and then there they were. I'd been hiding in my attic, and then I heard voices. I didn't want to be alone anymore."

I gave Devon a tight smile of understanding. My few days alone in my bathroom had been one of the worst times in my life. I could only imagine that a couple of weeks, all alone and hiding in an attic, had been brutal for the teen.