Chapter 4: Last Kiss

Singer picks at the loose thread on her shirt. She's been picking and pulling and now half of her sleeve is gone on her right arm. It's a bad habit, especially since this is the only shirt she has, but she can't seem to be able to stop.

She looks around the warehouse she and the others are currently housing in. Michelle and Katelyn and sleeping in a corner, using an old, raggedy blanket for warmth. Julia, Jessica and Elijah are asleep around some of the food sacks, since there's a chance of someone breaking in to steal it.

And Wesley, Joey and Tori are in the second floor, taking turns on who should take watch up there. It's Singer's turn on keeping watch on the first floor.

That's why she's awake right now.

It's so quiet tonight, which is odd. It seems like every night for the last three weeks she's heard the sounds of growls and moans of the undead from outside. Out here, she's barely heard any.

But right now they're in open country instead of the city. That might have something to do with it. Less noise attracts less zombies. That's what Singer thinks anyway. She wonders if they're even in Virginia anymore. Maybe they crossed off into another state without knowing. That wouldn't be surprising considering how much they've been running.

If she knew where she was, she would've left and set out for somewhere new, away from here-away from these people.

It's been four days since Aunt Connie died. Only four... and it seems like it's been so long ago. But Singer is sure it doesn't feel that way for her cousin. No, of course it doesn't. To them, it must seem like just yesterday.

Since her death, the group has been looking for a town-a settlement that wasn't full of crazies, but they haven't even found another person. Not since that crazy lady and her two sons that are nothing but bone and blood now.

Once they find a group, or figure out where they are, Singer's leaving. She's sure of it. She has to leave. She knows what her mother asked of her, but Katelyn isn't safe around her. No one is. She's a walking bad luck charm.

She looks at her mother and sister, all curled up and shivering under the pathetic piece of cloth, and prays that someone will come to their rescue.

There's a noise from upstairs.

Singer stands, quietly listening. It's voices...

"What the..." She whispers, slowly stepping towards the stairs. Hesitantly, she places one foot on the step.

Silence.

Then another.

More silence. The only sounds are the hushed voices from upstairs.

Step by step she climbs, staying quiet, listening carefully. Goosebumps arise on her arms, and her chest tightens. Something feels wrong.

She grabs the small pocket knife she found a few days ago from her shorts. There shouldn't be more than one voice from upstairs, since only one person is supposed to keep watch while the others sleep. But... Singer recognizes the voices. They're some of the only human voices she's heard for over three weeks.

Tori stands by one of the windows, moonlight casting an almost otherworldly glow on her face and hair. Her eyes are not searching of what's outside; They're just staring at nothing while the two males standing near some supply boxes argue quietly.

Singer crouches low, using the railing to help conceal her.

"I'm just saying it might be best if we went our own way," Joey says.

"Went our own way?" Wesley spats back. "If you haven't noticed, almost every time we split up, somebody dies, someway, somehow, I'm worried just being separated from the people downstairs."

"Which is stupid. Look, we are losing people left and right here. We've lost our parents and Brittney in less than three weeks. Their deaths were days apart. It's been what, twenty-four days since the apocalypse started? And six people are dead. Six. This obviously isn't working out. We need to think of a new plan, and that new plan might have to involve leaving here-leaving these people."

"But there's enough food in this warehouse to last us months," He whispers harshly. "And we can build a fence or something, grow food, all that kind of stuff, or we could find another group-"

"But how many people will die before we do that?" Joey sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Wes, if we want to survive, we're going to have to make hard choices. I'm not saying we should kill or hurt any of the people here. I'm just suggesting we leave."

"He's right," Tori says, her gaze not wavering from the moon and stars. "We can't stay with these people. If we do, we'll eventually die."

"We're all going to die at some point. Using that as an argument is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say. And you're my sister, so I've heard you say some pretty stupid things."

"Then what do you think we should do?" Joey asks, his arms crossing as his shoulders tense. "Stay here and hope we manage to live another day? Hope we don't end up like our mom and dad?"

"No, that's not-"

"Then what? You're the youngest one in our family, so obviously you make the best decisions, so what do you think we should do?"

Wesley doesn't answer, which hurts Singer more than she wants to admit.

"That's what I thought. We'll leave in the mor..." His face suddenly trails off and he does a double take in Singer's direction.

Her breath hitches in her throat, and she quickly tries to inch down the stairs, but Joey's quick and he doesn't have to be as quiet as she does. He stomps over to the stiars, a frown appearing on his lips when he sees her.

"What are you doing?" He asks, his voice stern, and in all honesty, Singer has never been intimidated or afraid of Joey until now.

"I heard voices. I was confused since I thought only one person would be awake and..." She looks at Wesley with wide eyes. "Are you really going to leave in the morning?"

"We don't have any other choice," Tori replies before Wes can, and Singer can't help but scoff.

"Really? That's your answer? Of course, you have a choice." She stands up and climbs up those last few stairs, looking up at him with furrowed brows and a frown. "You can stay here. We can make this as a base for a while if we need to, actually eat an appropriate amount of calories for a day. It might help in healing that cut on your arm. And we can raid some pharmacies in a nearby town or something for antibiotics."

Her eyes dart to the gash on his right arm. It's wrapped up with the cleanest bandages they could find, and stitched together as best as they could do. Tori did an adequate job, but they have no antibiotics or cream to keep it from risking infection, so he'll have to get the best nutrition he can to keep from risking... well, death.

And the best nutrition is what they all have here with this dried fruit. It's they best they've got for now, and medicine wise... well, there must be some store or pharmacy that has something, right?

And if she leaves, they'll be safer.

"Why should we stay here when we could go out looking for a settlement that has the food and medication we need?"

"We've been trying. Staying here is just a suggestion. We haven't... you know, settled on that yet," She shrugs, and he rolls his eyes.

"We? You act as if this is a group decision when you know full and well your mother is the one who makes the choices for us."

"Well, yeah. She's an adult."

"So is Tori, and Jessica. Elijah and I are just nearly adults. Where's your argument there?"

Singer sighs. "You're right. Let me rephrase that. My mom is a smart adult. She wouldn't try to convince the members of her family to leave at the break of dawn and most likely not even say goodbye."

No, that's something she might do. Singer's already convinced herself she must leave... What more could she convince herself or others to do?

Joey grits his teeth, but Singer makes no attempt to apologize. Why should she? She's right, and they all know it, even if they don't want to believe it.

"You don't get it though. The people you care about are still alive," Tori says. "You haven't lost family members. You haven't lost the people you love."

Singer stares in shock. She's shocked at how someone could be so freaking stupid. It's... one of the stupidest things anyone in her group has said since the apocalypse started.

"In case you forgot, Jeremiah was my cousin-well, second cousin if you want to be technical. Grunkle Mike was my great uncle, hence the nickname, and Aunt Connie was my great aunt. I've lost family members, thank you. And I know some of the blame is on me, but-"

"Some?" Tori laughs and takes a step toward her. "Almost every person who's dead in our group is dead because you were an idiot. You are the reason for almost everything going wrong. So your opinion on whether or not we should leave is irrelevant because you are the reason we want to leave in the first place!"

"Hey-" Wes starts, but he doesn't get the chance to say much more.

"I know a lot of this is my fault," Singer says, her voice cracking. "I've been trying to fix things, to-to stop this from happening-"

"Fix things? You can't fix things! They're dead! They're never coming back because of you!" Tori lets out a frustrated scream and grabs a flashlight. Singer's eyes widen in fear, but Tori doesn't come at her with the flashlight like she thought she would. Instead she chucks the flashlight at the window.

The glass shatters, the sound piecing the quiet night air. There's the thump of the flashlight hitting the ground below, and then it's quiet besides Tori's heavy breathing. And a few seconds later there's footsteps rushing up the stairs.

Singer stares at Tori with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

"What happened?" Michelle asks when she reaches the second floor. Her face holds fear and worry. "Is everyone alright? Is anyone hurt?"

Singer ignores her mother's questions; Instead she glares at the Tori. "You are an idiot!  Don't you realize what you've done?"

There's a moan that comes from outside, followed by multiple more, and everyone goes white.

"I thought there weren't that many zombies out here," Julia says, her voice rising at least one octave. Singer looks out the window, her stomach twisting into knots at the sight.

"Well, you were wrong. I think that looks like a group of... thirty something."

"We won't run able to outrun them," Elijah states. "There's no other shelter for miles, and they don't tire."

"Can we wait them out?" Jessica asks. "We have months' worth of food here."

Michelle looks like she might be considering the idea, but then her eyes flicker to Joey's bandages on his arm.

"We can't wait months. In maybe a week that'll be infected. Could be even less time that." She sighs and looks up at Joey's face. "You need medicine, and we can only hope to find that in some settlement or group since most pharmacies have been raided already."

"Plus the changing of bandages and everything else will keep them here," Singer says. "They seem to be able to like... smell us or something."

"Then what should we?" Jessica looks out the window and blanches. "Oh, God. They're all gathering outside around the broken glass. What do we do?"

Michelle sighs, looking around. Singer can tell she's thinking, and she knows she's not going to like whatever idea her mother is thinking up. She knows by that sigh-that face. This is not going to end well for someone, and she thinks she knows who.

"They haven't gotten to the main entrance or the side entrance yet. If one of us can create a distraction and lead them off, the rest of us will be safe and can stay here until the other gets back. Then everyone as a group can decide on where we want to go."

She says 'one of us' as if she hasn't already decided she will be the one leaving.

"It's going to be you, isn't it?" Katelyn asks, her eyes tired and red. She's only ten-well, eleven now, actually-but she's not an idiot. She can read between the lines.

"I have to," Michelle replies. She gives her a small kiss on the forehead before turning to look at Singer.

"What if you don't come back?" She asks.

"If I'm not back by morning, then leave. Be sure to have packed up enough food and weapons. Joey needs medicine for his arm and none of us are doctors." She gives Singer one last kiss on the forehead. "Take care of your sister. Remember the rules. And never, ever forget that I love you and I always will."

Then she grabs a piece of broken glass that's on the floor, and makes a shallow cut on her hand, just enough to make herself bleed. Then she heads for the side entrance. Michelle gives her two daughters one last look before opening the door and leaving, being sure to close it after her.

She screams, she yells-does everything to get the zombies attention. She succeeds, and they chase her, and Singer watches from the window as she fades out of view in the night sky.

She watches hour after hour-her and Katelyn-while the others pack up as much food as possible. She watches and waits for her mother to come back. She watches until the sun rises, hoping Michelle will return.

She doesn't.

•

I wake up with tears in my eyes.

Seventh kill.

It's been such a long time since I had that dream-the one where my mom died. She would have had a birthday  five days ago. She would have turned forty.

I mean, there's always the very slim chance that she was held up or something and couldn't come back, but those types of situations are only in movies or those 'inspiring true stories' people on T.V. used to talk about. It's not real anymore. And even if it was, there's no way I would ever know. My mother could be in any state in America. Hell, she might've crossed the border into Mexico or Canada. I'm here in England. There's no way in knowing.

And there's no hope in hoping.

"Five, are you awake?"

I blink, my eyes straining to see in the dark room. I recognize the voice, but I don't know where the person who owns said voice is.

"Yeah, Sam, I'm awake. Why?"

"Well, you've been tossing around and saying stuff in your sleep. I was going to try to wake you until you swung your arm around and nearly hit me in the face. You hit the little springs and rod above your bunk. Your hand's probably going to be a little sore."

I let out a light laugh, letting out a small hiss at the ache I now feel. "Already is."

"So, yeah... bad dream?"

"Yeah."

"I thought they were getting better."

A heaviness weighs down on my chest. "They never get better, I just get better at hiding them, dealing with them. This was one I... hadn't dreamt in awhile."

"Oh..." There's a pause, and I can sense the nervousness. "Was the dream about... uh, please don't get angry or-or upset or anything, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but um, were you dreaming about-"

"No, Sam. I wasn't dreaming about Simon." There's a bitter taste in my mouth just by saying his name.

"I was going to say Caleb."

"No, you weren't. You'd be sympathetic if you were going to ask about Caleb. You were nervous because you... know how touchy I can be on the subject of-of Runner Three."

"I hate how good you are at knowing this stuff."

I shrug, looking up at the springs and little metal bars above me. "Sometimes I'm good. Sometimes not. But the dream wasn't about either of them. It was about someone else."

"Want to talk about it?" He whispers after a moment of silence, and I sigh.

"Maybe some other time... Not now."

He hums quietly, but doesn't say much more. It really just falls into an awkward silence, or maybe he's just fallen back asleep.

"Sam?"

No answer. And that makes me smile.

He needs sleep. He's been spending so much of his time searching for any leads, anything more on Comansys. Since Amelia's rescuing a few days ago, I've been put on regular missions like food and tech runs. I think that's my punishment for now, since Amelia hasn't said anything else about it. Maybe she isn't as petty as I thought.

But we haven't found much in the search for anything Comansys. I think tomorrow a few runners will be going out to see one of Comansys'... headquarters? Bases? They were a tech company before the apocalypse, so I'm unsure what to really call the buildings now.

I also am not sure whether I will be one of the three or four runners who'll be going to check out the Comansys base/building/whatever. It all depends on Amelia.

Of course, Sam keeps trying to have Amelia let me go on these special missions, since he says even though everything goes wrong on my missions, they almost always work out in the end.

But, as we all know, the choice is Amelia's. While I don't hate her or anything of that sort, I most certainly don't trust her. Maybe it's because I don't know much about the Ministry of Recovery, or maybe it's because the Ministry only helps us after we defeat Van Ark. I mean, we really could have used their help then when he tried to kill us all with his army of mind controlled zoms, right?

Maybe it's because I would rather have someone else be leader. Not me. Oh, God, no. I wouldn't last a week without children screaming and fire all around with people running mad in the streets. I know I'm not cut out to Abel's leader, and I have no desire to be. The person who I think should be in charge is Janine.

I don't exactly like Janine by any means. She put me in a straightjacket and in the crazy room. I'm still bitter about that... but I know deep, deep, deep down that her decision was the right one. I believe Janine should be Abel's leader because she puts up with my bullshit by outsmarting me and telling me the truth even when I don't want to hear it. She thinks from every angle, and is much smarter than Amelia from what I've seen so far.

But Janine either doesn't want to be leader or doesn't think she is qualified enough, because she doesn't say much about this new boss. She won't try to take Amelia's spot, even if I were to say anything.

I don't trust Amelia. Not yet, anyway. Maybe I will as time passes. Maybe I will if she helps us get our people back. That's what our main priority is-getting back the listing Abel residents.

And I plan on doing that. If I can kill a man who made himself immortal, I sure as hell can find my friends.

But now, I realize as I glance up at the clock, I have to get up and get dressed. I have kitchen duty this morning and I have to help Milo go over his math one more time.

•

I hand out another plate of scrambled eggs to a random resident. He tells me thank you, like they all do, and I just smile and nod. It's easier than saying anything because they might try to strike up conversation and hold up the line.

They all look so happy at seeing the unseasoned scrambled eggs. I guess that makes sense since this is the first time we've served eggs in months. A few runners were able to find more chickens which, as everyone knows, gave us more eggs.

Funny how this was something I hated to eat and now it's a great day to be able to have it. They did always say you didn't know what you had until it's gone.

Amelia walks up to the counter a few feet away and gives in her dirty plate to one of the others helping in kitchens. I expect her to mutter a thank you or whatever and leave, like every other person does, but she doesn't. She doesn't go about her professional business, but instead heads over to my counter, where I'm passing out more food.

"Runner Five, could I have a word with you?"

I look at her with a raised brow as I pass a young girl her plate. "Um, maybe in about twenty minutes."

"I'd like to speak with you now, please."

I huff. "Miss Spens, I have work to do, even if it's not as important as running. These people are hungry and my job, for now at least, is to give them their food."

"Well, I'm sure someone else could fill in for you, and really, call me Amelia."

"Fine, Amelia. I have a job to do, and it's a very simple job. You got your food first, so you obviously were one of the first ones to finish, meaning when you finished about ten seconds ago, there were still a lot of people in line to get their food. There still are a lot of people who haven't eaten yet. All I'm asking is for you to wait twenty minutes. Unless it's an emergency, I'm sure it can-"

"It's about your files."

I freeze, my brown eyes darting up to meet her blue ones. She's not joking. I can see it on her face that she's not lying. My blood turns cold.

"Um, Ashlynn, do you mind passing out the plates while I talk to Amelia?" I stammer before clearing my throat awkwardly.

The brunette nods slowly, a suspicious gleam in her eyes. She says nothing on it, and even if she did, I wouldn't tell her the truth.

I walk around the counter, following Amelia outside our little meal area that now has a roof over it.

"What exactly is it you wanted to know?" I ask, surprised my voice isn't wavering.

"When looking at your files, I saw that in place of your name was Runner Forty-three."

I nod. "That's correct."

"And when I contacted Mullins to ask them on that, I was told that no one actually knew your name, just that you were shipped from America to here. I was told the base you lived in while in America was called the A.M.T.B., but they never told me what it stood for."

"Maybe they didn't know."

She purses her lips, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Maybe, but I contacted the only A.M.T.B. I could find on Roufflenet and asked them about the 'Runner Forty-three' they had shipped over to Mullins three years ago, and do you know what they said?"

I keep a straight face. "Um... no."

"They said they don't ship any of their runners internationally. If runners are sent away from the base, it is to a base in America only. They told me that they have had many 'Runner Forty-three's but all of them died or were sent to another base in America. Now, would you mind telling me about that?"

I let out a huff of a laugh. "I don't mind telling you that you should mind your own business. And I don't mind telling that you probably contacted the wrong base because I am very much alive and I'm here, in England. And if you wanna do research, try researching something that'll help me find my friend, because my name matters nothing to me. Caleb does."

"If the knowledge of your name is so useless, then why are you trying so hard to keep it a secret?"

I pull back, my heart jumping in panic. "It doesn't matter what my name is. I do my job. Why don't you do yours and just help on finding our people? You do your job, and I'll do mine."

"I am doing my job. You, Runner Five, have been known to be very reckless. I simply want to know why."

I smile sarcastically. "You want to know why I'm reckless? Why I speak out? Because where I came from, I was forced to do everything exactly as told, and I did. And guess what? People died, and I lost something that I was very lucky to get back. I suggest you don't try to know who I was, because that name is dead, and so is the little girl who owned it."

And I walk away. She can't know the truth about the files. No one can.

So they won't. They won't because I won't let them.

A/N: Here you go, guys! Sorry this chapter was kinda choppy. Also, happy birthday to me! I'm 17 today! Yay! Anyway, please be sure to vote and comment! Thank you and have a blessed day!