The once sleepy town of Forest Hills, located in the rolling Pennsylvania mountains, once housed a population of roughly four to five hundred people though now it is desolate, empty houses already being consumed by the surrounding forest as streets crack and crumble with the cold winters quickly destroying what is not maintained.
Down the center of one of these broken streets the tatter-dressed survivor walks as fast as she could, a trail of blood behind her as she staggered through the rain towards the first intact building she could find. The rumbling thunder seemed to shake the very ground as she slipped in through a window as the rain began washing away the trail of red behind her.. slinking into the basement and cowering as she listened to the sound of voices, orders being barked.. and then a cry of terror as she saw the seeping gray make it's way through broken glass and cracked timbers, the mist had arrived with the storm.
Hiding, a ball of cloth bit between her teeth to keep from crying out as she cradled a small candle in a dark basement pantry, hand being used to hide the light should any of her pursuers come, she listened to footsteps above her. The first set were fast, running.. the second.. and third.. and what sounded like a dozen more were slow, scraping and dragging. Bang bang bang, came fists upon the basement door she'd barred as she scrambled down below, boards, boxes and chairs stuffed to keep it from swinging open.. and then a scream of pain and a gurgle of dying breath escaping lips just a few yards away.
For several hours she could hear them, ambling about the house, banging into objects and the crash of a television being knocked over before the steps began to recede, another hour before she dared to look out.. her face pale.. and clothes stained red as blood continued it's slow drip from her back.. With a seering pain, she finally moved.. lighting her lantern and placing it on a table in the basement, it's dim light shining as she carefully crept upstairs and unbarred the door.
Blood and gore awaited her.. and she ignored it, instead making a slow, wheezing climb up another stairwell in search of a bathroom. A risk would be made as she cut old towels to pieces, soaking them in alcohol taken from an upturned liquor cabinet on her way. Removing her shirt she used the mirrors to check.. and almost fell when she saw the damage the razor wire she'd crawled under to escape had done.
A few slow hours passed before she was bound in tight haphazardly sanitized cloth in an effort to slow further bleeding and she leaned against a wall to peer out the window. There were bodies, a few dozen.. all decapitated, some were people once, dressed in street clothes.. but some were these monsters.. dressed in survivalist military gear, police uniforms, and firefighter's equipment, and armed with knives and axes and clubs.. what little good it did against the roaming horde their shouting had lured upon them. Never again would she be so blind in her desperation, the zombies were horrible... but these men were monsters.
Their camp was a few miles south along the main stretch, a small fire station they'd fortified. She fell on old teachings and sought out the station when she reached the town, Firefighters and Police were the good guys, they'd help you if you were lost.. these men preyed on that. She saw bodies being burned in piles, boxes of loot stolen from people that had crossed their path, and before she escaped, saw them laugh as they made a pair of survivors fight to the death for scraps of food only to give it to their hunting hounds instead... In her haste to escape unnoticed, she didn't see the barbed wire.. nor the bells.. and they'd pursued her with a force unexpected, likely assuming she had more family nearby to capture.
Now two days later, sore and still slow, she crept towards the camp again in search of her missing gear.. and the camp was all but shattered, in their haste to pursue someone must've forgotten to seal a gate.. the zombies must've gotten in and the survivors of her hunters slain in their retreat back home. As she limped into the camp she thought it empty.. until she heard the scrape of a blade leaving it's home.. and a man, bleeding, covered in bites and missing an eye glared at her.. his left arm was limp and shattered. She didn't care.
Both were weak, tired and all but broken, and she grasped the first thing near her as he approached.. it happened fast, he lunged, and she swung... and there was a moment she thought herself dead from the pain shooting through her body. When her eyes opened she saw he laid there, skull shattered as the axe lay lodged in his brain.. and blood oozed from her back as wounds that were just starting to close were reopened by her effort.
She learned so much in these days.. of how little she knew, of how some people had become worse monsters than the dead.. and most of all she learned what kind of person she would never become.
