Rotten ✔️

Chapter 23

We had been at the new building for almost two weeks now. Getting nowhere closer to finding out where my mum, Jen, and Caleb were. Garth had been going out a lot by himself trying to find out where they could be. If they were even in the city and not out in the suburbs. He would come back and mark off on the map where he checked. Sometimes he wouldn't come back in the same day.

Lizzie and I would occasionally go out and help him look for them, but we could tell that he wanted some alone time. He had been keeping to himself a lot. Barely speaking to us. Lizzie and I had tried plenty of times to get him to talk to us, but he never wanted to talk. But it was now time for him to talk to us.

Garth still hasn't come back for three days. We gave him a walkie-talkie in case he needed to contact us, but he hasn't. But when he gets back, we are going to talk. Whether he likes it or not. I pick up the walkie talkie off the small table we found and turn it on.

"Garth, are you there?" I speak into the walkie talkie only to be met with the static. "I swear to God, if he doesn't reply we are going out there to find him." I say to Lizzie.

"Okay." Lizzie says as she fiddles with the map. "I'm so bored! Can't I go out for a bit and search the nearby buildings?"

"Garth has already searched the nearby ones. Plus, the horde is only a few blocks away. I don't want to risk our lives." I reply.

"Well, I'm going to go and double check it. Maybe he missed something." Lizzie states, standing up and dusting off her clothes. She lifts her bag onto her shoulders before heading over to the door. Stopping just as she reaches the door. "If I'm not back by three, then go search for me."

"Wait, I should go with you." I suggest, heading towards my bag.

"No, you stay here and wait for Garth. He might turn up while I'm gone. I'll see you soon." She says as she walks out the door, shutting it behind her.

"Bye." I mutter as I walk over to the door and lock it. I was now going to be alone for two hours. Unless Garth came back before.

Now I was the bored one. There wasn't a lot to do, so I just mucked around. I studied the map, noted our supplies, studied the map again, counted our food cans, studied the map. I was just on a cycle, rechecking and recounting everything.

We had a large map of the town and we, I mean Garth, had only gone a few blocks in each direction. When he returns, he will mark off which buildings he has been in. I had counted and checked everything at least eight times before I got bored of doing that. It had only been half an hour since Lizzie had left and I was already wishing that I had gone with her instead of staying here.

I decided to go onto the roof to see if I could see anything happening. I climb up the short flight of stairs that leads to the access door. As soon as I opened the door, a strong wind ruffled my hair and clothes. I clicked the door into place so that it wouldn't shut behind me. Once the door shuts it automatically locks itself and we don't have the key.

It was quite a windy day today. I leaned over the edge of the roof and looked down at the empty street. The only noise was the wind howling through the broken windows and abandoned buildings. Everything felt unnaturally calm. It is so different seeing a city that would usually be busy with people and cars and constant noise, be so dead.

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I look to the left and see a Rat stumbling and sniffing. It wouldn't be able to see or hear me up here, but just for precautions, I duck down a bit and watch it. It makes its way to the middle of the road when I realise that I can hear something else, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It was almost like a car.

I gasped as a car screeched around the corner, drifting from the speed they were going. The tail end of the car hit the wandering Rat and it flew a few metres down the road. I crouched down further as the car halted to a stop. I didn't recognise this car at all and only stupid people would make so much noise in a city full of Rats. Five people decked out in black clothing jumped out of the vehicle. I was too far away to see if I knew any of them. From what I could see, was that three were male and two were female. They each carried a weapon of some kind. Mostly guns, but one had a katana, and another had what looked like daggers.

"So, where are they?" One of the men asked in a loud voice.

"I don't know, okay? I just know that they must be around here somewhere. I've been following them for a few days." A familiar woman's voice said. I could hear them as clear as day. They were obviously trying not to hide. They were hunting people.

"There is no point in trying to hunt people when you don't have any clue where they are. We are the best hunters there are, but we need to have some hint as to where they could be. Not just an 'I had been following them, they must be around here somewhere'. They could have moved on by the time we had got here." One of the other men said, he was the shortest of the three.

"Can you just find them, so I can give them what they deserve for killing my boyfriend." The woman said.

That's when I recognised her voice. It was the woman from the roof.

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A/N: Hey all! SO SO SORRY THAT I HAVEN'T UPDATED THIS IN LIKE TWO MONTHS! A LOT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR ME AND I HAVEN'T HAD A LOT OF INSPIRATION TO WRITE... SO I FINISHED HIGH SCHOOL, HAD MY FINAL EXAMS, HAD CHRISTMAS, GOT THE RESULTS FOR EXAMS, HAD MY B-DAY, SAID GOODBYE TO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY, MOVED FROM THE NORTH ISLAND TO THE SOUTH ISLAND FOR UNIVERSITY AND TODAY WAS MY FIRST DAY OF CLASSES. SO A LOT HAS HAPPENED! I AM GOING TO UPDATE WHENEVER I HAVE FINISHED A CHAPTER NOW INSTEAD OF THE REGULAR POSTING BECAUSE SINCE I HAVE STARTED UNI, I'M NOT GOING TO HAVE AS MUCH FREE TIME AS I LIKE, BUT I WILL TRY MY BEST FOR Y'ALL!

SO! What do you think is gonna happen to Lizzie, Garth and Spence? New people have come and they claim to be hunters! One of them seems to be the woman that they left on the roof with her dead boyfriend. Seems like she survived! But I wonder how!?!?! And I wonder what will happen next!!!!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! So so sorry again that I didn't update for two months, but now I'm back and I'm gonna try my hardest to at least update once a week until the book is finished! Which I don't think will be very far away...

Anyways, please vote and comment and stuff because I love seeing the notifications and I try to respond to all comments! (Not that there are very many at this point XD) Also go follow me because why not?! 

Happy Reading!

-FlatMatesForLife