Hours of walking on the highway had caused me and Dalton to finally slow down. The sun was going down, and my brain was starting to play tricks on me. I had stared into the endless white, telling myself one more step for hours. Hours of the same sounds. The same colors. I had thought so much about thoughts, I think I have begun to hallucinate. We passed by a bigger city that we could see off of the highway, but there were no off-ramps to get to it. The tracks kept going straight. I slowed down a bit and stopped, which may have been a mistake. The first rest that I took completely cut off my constant flow of movement. I wanted to collapse, but I held my ground and stared at the buildings. I started to realize it wasn’t a city. It was once one, but now it was abandoned. How could a small town like Hartland still have plenty of survivors, but a city like this didn't? It was old, and vines made up most of the walls that I could see. That would be a good place to stop for the day. The path was getting harder to walk anyway, but at least the snow was lightening.

  “This city,” My throat sounded a little raspier than I thought it would. We hadn’t spoken in a long time. The most I heard was Rosie’s occasional complaints, and the cold, sharp breaths I would take every time I pushed my scarf down. “It looks abandoned. We can stay there,” I veered off the highway. The snow was much thicker where the trucks hadn’t plowed through. Every muscle burned in my body, but I couldn’t give up here. I would freeze to death. I pushed through, Dalton close behind me as we trekked through the forest. The first building we came across was an old parking garage covered in old, ash-like vines. I threw some of my guns on the other side of a concrete divider and slowly heaved myself over, groaning in pain and catching my breath on the other side. I bent down, putting the guns back on my shoulder and reaching over to take Rosie from Dalton. I grabbed her and sat her down, then helped him pull himself over. I could tell his shoulder was in a lot of pain where I shot him. We walked over to the corner and sat down. I leaned my head back on the concrete wall and released a well-earned sigh. My body ached even more, but it was a good ache. It meant I had done something productive. Dalton pulled some stuff out of Rosie’s backpack so she could eat something. He handed me a bottle of water, and this time I took it. I downed half of it and set it down next to me. I was past the thought of him poisoning me. If he wanted me dead, he wouldn’t have walked all this way. He tried to offer me some food, but I pushed it away. Thinking about eating made me sick to my stomach.

  “You’re going to have to eat sometime,” He opened up a pack of peanuts and popped a few into his mouth. “I’ve been watching you limp for miles. What’s going on with your leg?”

  “The less I know, the less I have to worry about,” I pulled myself back up to my feet. The pain was worse now that my muscles had the chance to relax. “I’m going to find some dry wood to start a fire,” I went to throw myself over the concrete, but he stopped me.

  “I’ll do it. You set yourself straight,” He jumped over the concrete and went off into the snowy woods with his gun. I was left here with the child. I slowly sat back down and took off my pants layers. I was honestly overheated a bit; it felt nice. I rolled down the last layer and stared at the extremely bruised patch on my thigh. There was a large gash that had mostly crusted over with dried blood, but the middle was still raw. I squinted my eyes and looked away, taking a breath. Seeing it made it worse. I reached over and grabbed Rosie’s bag and pulled out the medical box I had seen Dalton use. Inside was a poorly wrapped suture kit. I looked in the rest of the bag and found nothing but food and water… and whiskey. I took it out and held it in my hand, staring at the half-full bottle. I popped it open and took a swig, fighting my urge to vomit at how bitter it was. I could feel it go all the way down my throat and settle at a constant churn in my stomach. I took one more, choking back a cough, then poured it onto the wound. I couldn’t help but curse at the intense, deep pain. I hovered my hands over the burning sensation. My fingers trembled as I struggled to decide whether to touch it or not. I could feel it sizzling into what seemed like my bones. I clenched my teeth and forced my eyes shut. A bitter taste rose in my mouth. I wanted to vomit. I grabbed the water next to me and splashed it across, easing some of the burn. I could finally breathe again, but now it was getting colder. The liquid mixed with the chilled air had turned my leg into an ice bath. I dabbed the sleeve of my coat onto it to soak up what I could, then took out the suture kit. There wasn’t much to sew shut, and I didn't want to seal the potential infection inside. By the time I finished, Dalton was back. He threw wood inside and climbed over, then saw me tying off the final knot. I saw him physically wince at the thought of me sewing myself shut. I was slightly paler and covered in sweat. My jaw was sore, partly from the cold and partly from clenching my teeth so hard.

  “I figured it out,” I wrapped the kit back up and put it into the bag. I took another swig of the whiskey and held my breath to keep myself from vomiting. “Good job finding wood." I slowly pulled my layers back on.

  “Yeah, same to you,” He piled it up next to us and took a lighter from the bag. There were a lot of dried-up leaves and twigs all over the ground, so he scraped them up, lighting them first so the wood could catch fire. “And to think you’ve been walking on that this whole time,” I tied my scarf tighter around my head and lay down next to the fire. I brought my legs up to my chest, despite the pain, and lay in that position. It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep once my eyes fluttered shut.

  I woke up a couple of hours later, shivering and trembling from the cold. Dalton was still awake, leaning against the wall and staring off across the garage. “I’ve listened to your chattering teeth for a while,” He tiredly smiled. I sat up, my leg deeply aching. I slowly moved over next to him, bringing my legs up to my chest and leaning against the wall behind us. Rosie was on his lap and rolled over, sitting between both of us. Immediately, I was a little warmer.

  “If I can’t save them,” I whispered. I could barely keep my eyes open. “I don’t think I can keep going anymore.” He furrowed his eyebrows and looked down at me, but I was out like a light.

  The sun was well up by the time I opened my eyes again. Dalton was finally asleep. I didn’t want to wake him. I got up and grabbed some more wood to put onto the fire, then suited back up. All of my joints and my leg ached, but we didn’t have any pain meds. The more I moved, the better I would feel in the long run, right? I slung my guns over my shoulder and held my rifle. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I started to walk away. “Are you trying to leave, Sniper?” I stopped in my tracks.

  “I just needed to warm myself up,” I turned back around. Dalton was sitting on the ground, looking up at me. He smiled. I looked past him, keeping my expression the same until I saw locked onto movement behind him. He saw my eyes trail away and stood up, grabbing his gun and staring in the same direction. Someone was walking towards us.

  “Make it stop,” they whispered. It was a middle-aged woman, maybe closer to her 60s. She only had on a T-shirt and jeans as she walked through the snow.

  “Rosie, get behind me,” Dalton reached his hand out, shielding her as she scuffled her feet to get behind him. I looked behind and around us, making sure there were no other threats. “Hey!” He yelled. “Stop walking! Put your hands up!” She kept moving towards us. Her feet barely lifted off the ground, almost like she was gliding. Her skin was purple, some spots almost black from the cold, but that wasn’t the weirdest thing about her. It looked like the tip of her nose was missing, and the veins all over her body were black. Her eyes were sunk back into her face. “Stop where you are, or I'll shoot!” I held my weapon by my side, staring in confusion. He was looking through his sights, holding his finger on the trigger. He looked back at me, and I diverted my eyes from her to him. I nodded. He looked back, holding his gun up. The woman started to climb over the concrete. Slowly, he and Rosie walked backwards towards me. “Last warning. I don’t want to do this,” Finally, she stopped where she was.

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  “Make it stop!” She screamed. Her scream sounded inhumane. Her whole body shifted forward, and she started to run towards Dalton. He pulled the trigger, firing a couple of shots into her. She fell to the ground at the initial impact, but immediately scrambled back to her feet. He unloaded the rest of the clip into her until she lay still on the ground. He reloaded his gun and fired two more shots, ensuring that she was dead. I was frozen, staring at the body on the ground. I had hardly noticed Rosie, who ran up to me, tears running down her red cheeks as she hugged me. I instinctively brought one arm down, but I hovered it over her back while I held my gun in the other.

  “What the hell was that?” I walked up next to him. He slowly lowered his weapon.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I would say we’ve entered the apocalypse. And that right there,” He moved her head with his foot. She had bullet holes all over, but no blood seeping out from them. “Would be compared to a zombie?” He kneeled and moved her head around with the end of his gun. “She’s a walking corpse. And those veins,” He flopped her arm over. “What am I looking at here, Sniper?”

  “It looks almost… purple. Her blood is pooled in her veins. Look at her eyes,” The whites were a dark red, and it looked like her eyes were hazel at one point, only now they were a dull bluish black. They were sinking back into her head. She was decaying. “Her skin is mottled and severely damaged. She’s been dead a long time. I don’t think I know any better either because that looks like a,” I paused. I didn’t want to say it out loud. It sounded stupid, but it made sense. “Look behind her ears. There’s this weird thing that all of my sick patients used to have. Their lymph nodes were red, sometimes black. I can’t tell if she’s frostbit or if it's-” I looked at her fingers. They were black. “It’s like the bubonic plague,” I reached down with the nozzle of my gun and moved her hair back. “She was sick at one point, too. Look at that swelling. I think you’re right,” I stood up and wiped my hands on my pants. I hadn’t touched her, but just thinking about it bothered me. The disease was spreading and getting much worse. Both of our thoughts were interrupted by a loud, blood-curdling scream. I turned around, immediately firing at the man running towards Rosie. He fell to the ground, almost right on top of her, sending both of them to the floor. I ran forward and grabbed her underneath her arm, pulled her up, and yanked her behind me. I could barely hear her cries. I fired a shot into his head just to be sure.

  “We need to leave. This city has to be infected,” I passed Rosie off to him, and we started to run out of the building. He jumped over the concrete and then stood next to it, putting his hand on my back to help me over before we started to run through the woods. I reloaded my gun and looked back. Three of them were running towards us. I spun around and dropped to my knees. Immediately, I fired at one on the far left, then the far right that was making a quick gain on us, then the one in the middle. I wasn’t sure if I had killed them, but I had at least slowed them down. I got back up as soon as I could and grabbed a nearby tree to pull myself up onto my feet. I couldn’t hide the fear on my face. I was slower than normal, but still fast enough to save my life. Dalton had stopped ahead at the edge of the treeline. He looked back to see if I was coming, and the moment I began to run, he kept on going. Still, I could catch up to him. We made it to the highway and fell into the plowed path from the trucks. It looked a little shallowed, like another truck had come through, but I wasn’t going to waste my time trying to figure that out. I looked back at the treeline, scouting for movement, but there was nothing I could see. We didn't stop running, though. We kept on going until our legs gave out, and we had no choice but to start walking again. Both of us were out of breath, and Rosie was sobbing.

  “We’re out of supplies,” I sighed. I fell into step with him. We didn’t have any time to grab anything before we ran out of there. The food, the water, the medical kit—all of it was left behind. The only things we had left were what we kept on our bodies. I had all of my guns, my layers of clothes, knives, and my radio. I had almost forgotten about the radio. I threw the rifle I usually held over my shoulder and grabbed the radio. I passed it between my two hands.

  “Where did you get that?” Dalton had given up on trying to console Rosie.

  “I told you, I have to save my friends,” I turned it on. There was static, but faint voices speaking from it. “I plan to go in there, guns blazing. This is how I get in,” I turned it off. I was scared I was going to drain the battery before I got the chance to talk to Jacob through it. I tucked it back into my pocket. The slower we walked, the more my limp was visible. I wasn’t focused on the pain, though, but more so on my new feeling of doom. Zombies were out to get us.

  “I know you said you’re not a soldier, but that save back there? Nobody just knows how to do that, not even people from the South. You have their look in your eyes,” I kept my head down and brought my gun back into my hands. I glanced behind us and in the fields of white all around, making sure there were no more of the deceased. I didn’t like thinking about the word zombie. It didn’t feel right. These were just sick people, suffering from some terrible sickness. A black-plague-like sickness. The blackened.

  “I was raised by a bunch of boys who liked to shoot guns for a living. Being a girl and being the youngest meant I had to work harder. I learned these things a long time ago, way before the beginning of the end." He shook his head like he didn’t fully believe me.

  “No amount of practice makes you ready for combat like that. You’re gifted,” Finally, I started to laugh. He was completely taken aback. That is the one thing that broke through to me. “Is that really the one thing that makes you laugh?” He cracked a smile. The lightened attitude in the air made Rosie seem happier. She sniffled, but she wasn’t crying anymore.

  “Yeah. That’s funny. That’s really funny,” I tried to stifle my laughter through my sarcastic words, but it wasn’t working very well. I was tired, and honestly in a state of shock. I started to wonder if my leg was infected and poisoning my brain. “Gifted? You think I'm gifted for being able to kill things and survive?” His smile slightly faded. “I was the one who taught half of my hometown how to shoot a gun. I was the one to turn them all into murderers, and the ones who were already like me? They turned into murderers on their own time. I was so scared that I would turn into them, and here I am.” A chill ran up my spine. “What if they thought they were protecting themselves when they shot those innocents walking around town? My brother was coming to see us, and he was-” My laughter slowly faded away. “I’m a killer, Dalton. Don’t think you’re safe from me, either.” I started walking a little faster. He was impressed, but the same actions that saved us were the actions I was afraid of all along. I knew I did the right thing, but I couldn’t help but think of those people back there, the blackened, who had families waiting for them. They were dead or lying wounded in the woods, and when their brother or sister, mother, father, or even their child came to find them, they would find them in the critical state I put them in. Sure, the sickness may have gotten to them first, but I shot them. They weren’t the first ones to be killed, either.

  "They didn’t know any better back there. I killed that woman, do you think I'm the one to blame?” Dalton picked up his pace. I sighed. He had a point, but I couldn’t shake that feeling deep inside. I didn’t want to succumb to evil. I didn’t want to kill anyone. I was scared that I was going to lose myself and end up killing an innocent person when it wasn’t necessary. I was more than scared. "If that was me, I'd want you to be the one to put me out of my misery. Better than a soldier, and better than a stranger." I scoffed.

  “I don’t think I'll live to see that day,” I had a weak smile plastered on. “I’ll be long gone by then.”