but stared at the backdoor with her wide, glossy, hazel eyes. “Please, Hazel, you have to tell me. Is she with a friend?” Hazel opened her mouth, but instead of talking, she screamed. The scream, long and sharp, hurt Autumn’s ears. Turning to the door, her eyes widened. Becky was banging on the other metal security door.
“No!” Hazel cried. “Autumn! Kill it!”
She stood there staring at Hazel’s little sister. Becky’s neck wound flowed with thick, ruby liquid, as her pale lips pulled back from her teeth trying to bite at the security door. Holding up her pistol and aiming, her hand shook just a little as she watched Becky. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She liked Becky. But it’s not Becky anymore , her mind told her. The thing at the door moaned loudly. She pulled the trigger. Hazel let out a small sob behind her as the thing that used to be Becky fell to the floor, lifeless.
****
Autumn had her stuff packed. She still hadn’t gotten hold of Ryan. Already she feared the worse. The radio said the hospitals were closing down as the infected started to overrun them. She at least wanted to tell the man she had been with for a while goodbye. She sighed, looking around her apartment. There wasn’t much she could take along, but she did fill her trunk and a small suitcase with bits and pieces of her life. Not many clothes, after all, they were going to be in a mall. What she did grab was a lot of her collectibles; things she would never be able to replace which held meaning to her, memories that had made her who she was.
Autumn took one last look at her tastefully decorated living room which had Ryan’s influence all over it. She would have gone with greens and browns not blues and blacks like he had wanted. Pausing at the entryway, Autumn looked at her reflection in her mirror. She saw that her curly, red blond-brown hair actually looked pretty good for once. What a shame , she thought, feeling miserable.
She pushed the curls lying against her cheek back behind her ear and walked out, not glancing back. She paused once more, a tear sliding down her cheek. “You can come back afterwards,” Richard said in a small voice. He stood outside waiting on her.
She nodded. “Maybe.”
****
As everyone gathered together, they took a small convoy of vehicles and closely followed the diesel. There were a number of car wrecks and infected along the back streets which they thought might be safer than the main roads. There were a lot of army trucks and people around the main roads which made travel harder. Autumn knew they had to get indoors soon, because the infected were going to get out of hand. You could tell by how many were aimlessly roaming the streets and fields.
At the moment they could take care of the infected, since there weren’t that many, shooting them in the head if they came too close. They didn’t have to stop, and if they did, Autumn planned on staying where she was and not getting bit. She couldn’t even envision being in that kind of situation. She would die first; that she was sure of. Being an infected until she rotted away spooked her more than anything else.
That day was supposed to be the grand opening of the mall. The plan was to take over the mall by whatever means necessary. It was bigger than she had imagined. She looked at the mall as they got closer; it was huge. It sat all alone, no houses nearby. There were a few cars scattered throughout the enormous parking lot. The designer of the mall wanted a lot of parking space, obviously hoping to fill it with shoppers spending their money at all the stores inside. Bad timing since the economy was going through a very slow period, and not many people wanted to part with their