After we wake up in the same bed we make breakfast. I think I hear something outside so I check the window.

“That’s so many…” I stutter at the fact that there were hundreds of those dead people in the streets.

“Woah, that has to be hundreds.” He says, “Maybe when they leave we need to go the other way as far away from the city as we can?” He looks at me and puts his hand on my cheek. “You are so beautiful. How did I get so lucky to end up with you here?” I push his hand off me.

“Michael, you know, I can barely walk right now?” I say limping my way to the table for lunch. “But thank you.” I blush and giggle.

We eat our lunch and board up the front entrance to his apartment seeing that no one is there everyone who lived there left. Some left him not saying that they went to their families. We don’t think they will come back. If they do? Hopefully, they won’t mind to let us have their food. We found as many dry foods that we could and packed them into bags. When the zombies where gone we packed up his car and got as much fuel into the gas tanks we found in the apartments near. The car was packed full of camping things with tents and more.

We went on driving for many days when we ran out of gas. No cars for miles and miles. We backed up what we could carry. Luckily for us, my foot was a lot better and we could walk with no problems. The weight of the bags we had to carry was hard but we still figured out a way to get as much as we could. We camped out in the woods for a few days before leaving the tent and some other large things we couldn’t carry.

We started walking and it felt like it was a lifetime of walking in one day. After days and weeks of walking to the ends of nowhere, I got so tired that I started passing out while walking. It had been days since the last night of good sleep that we had had. Almost no food left and we are struggling to go on. Michael told me that if we didn’t stop to take a break that someone would end up getting hurt. We stop by an old store. We search the whole store for any food or water. We mostly only found a few cans of beans and lots of waters in the back room. We carefully check every room and every door. Every exit is a way to escape if there is a need.

We decide that the best place to be would be the back office with three ways out of one window and two doors. It’s hard to make a decent fire. Being inside is even harder. We found an old camping stove within our camping things that we packed. I fire it up and put a pan from the store on it and Michael cooks the beans. I fix out sleeping bags. We open the can with a knife and pour it in. The smell quickly rises to my nose. I grab a bowl from the store shelf and take some beans. A little for me and a little for Michael. We enjoy the food. It felt like weeks since I last ate food let alone some baked beans. The delicious barbeque and spices in the beans give the best flavor in months. I take a bite and the beans move gracefully in my mouth. My mouth, my stomach, my brain all hesitant to eat it but loving every bite more. I could barely stop but by the time my bowl was empty I was full. The fire cracks and I drop my bowl on the floor. I leave it.

We did find a few other foods. Chips, cereal and other canned food like tomato soup and sauce, and fruit. Overall of it my favorite thing to have found was the gum. Minty and fresh. I would choose it over any of the food for one day. Even though Michael wouldn’t let me.

I took a piece out of the package and smelled the wrapper first. Then I took the gum out of the wrapper and threw it in my mouth. The first few chews were different than the soft chewing after the gum became gum.

It was so nice to feel mint on my mouth and still being able to chew. I still felt dirty on my mouth but It was more bearable than before.

Michael comes closer and puts his arm around me. “So, Julia. Are we gonna official our relationship?” He kisses my cheek while I rub my fingers through his hair.

“I mean, Who to tell?” I ask sitting up to start cleaning up the mess.

“Well, Me?” He laughs.

“Then, yeah I would love to,” I say picking up the bowels and throwing them in an old trash can that was there before we were.

Michael’s turn to watch so I curl up in his arms. He plays with my hair until I finally close my eyes and fall asleep.

I woke up not with the feeling of having Michael’s arms around me but the feeling of being watched. I open one eye and don’t see anyone so I act like I was asleep to just get a little more rest.

“Hey, wake up girl.” Someone says. I jump up quickly and look around to see 4 people sitting in chairs around me. Only one of them is a girl. I slowly reach my hand under my pillow and grip my gun. I back up to the door with the gun up and as a threat to shoot. Luckily for them and me, Michael came in at the last second before I pulled the trigger.

“Julia put it down they are cool.” He hands me a burrito and water. “Here have a drink.”

“Um, who are they?” I ask slowly dropping my gun my not letting it out of my hand.

“We are from a large group up the road a bit. We just finished our training so we were able to come out again. We are fairly close compared to normal. Worth it finding your brother and you.” One of the guys said helping us pack our things.

I gag to the thought. “Boyfriend, he is my boyfriend,”  I say leaning upon the door. They laugh at their friend with a big mistake. Even Michael laughed but I couldn’t. “You have a town?” one nods and another pulls out a map.

“Yes, we do. We bring people such as yourself to it to help out and live. It’s safe.” He hands us the map, “I’m Brandon by the way.”

“Max, William and Rebecca are these fine people here.” Brandon points to them.

“Clearly you need time to think Julia. Here take this map, meet us here.” He hands me a map and points to a spot with lots of markings.

“Okay,” I say packing my last few things. They walk out of the room and leave to store. We hear a car drive away.  

“I don’t know how I feel about this,” I say grabbing my bag and throwing it over one shoulder.

“They were here for three hours. They told me everything about this place. They aren’t really lead by anyone.” He grabbed the map and pointed. “This is the land they claimed and this is the land they are about to go for.”

“Why do they have to claim it? The Zombies? No! They clearly have other problems we can’t be a part of.” I say nervously.

“So you really don’t want to go?” He asks folding up the map. “Could be a few good nights sleep.”

“Michael, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” I throw the bag over my other arm.

“Just one night. To see how it goes?” Michael insisted. “We never really have had a good night’s sleep together.”

“Don’t make me the bad guy here Michael.” I go to the door and see a car that wasn’t there before with a note.

“If you want to go then go, but I’m not.” I turn to throw the sticky note on the ground.

“I won’t. I whisper. I look at the mirror in another car. I see him almost crying.

“Julia” I ignore “Juliana Blue, I am in love with you and I don’t. No, I won’t go anywhere without you.” He yells at me. I stop and turn to him. I couldn’t hold back my smile. I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks in a blush.

“Only because you are so freaking cute.” I run back to him and jump in his arms. “If it’s bad I will leave with or-” He cuts me off.

“Or without me I get it.” he laughs as he leans in and kisses me. His overgrown beard scratches my chin.

“Mock me,” I say getting into the car. After ten minutes, I roll to my side and fall asleep.

I wake up to Michael saying “I’m here.” He gets out of the truck to talk to the people at the door. I couldn’t hear him. Michael walks back as the man, he talked to, waves to the man who opens the door.  The door slowly opens and Michael drives into the town filled with people. I rolled down my window in shock. The people, the wells, the food, the gardens, the kids, the animals, the crops, the buildings. Why just let people in. Anyone could come in and just kill someone. We park our car and get out.

“Welcome to our city.” One lady says, “We will be helping you shortly.” She walks away and comes back with a clipboard. “So welcome.”  

“So what’s the name of this place?” Michael asks.

“Well, we don’t really have a name for this place yet.” The lady says putting her hand out to shake. “Mary Balentine”

“Julia Blue” I shake her hand.

“Michael Jones,” Michael says shaking her hand with a smile.

“This place is a safe haven now isn’t it Michael?” I say shaking his arm. “I can’t believe my eyes, this looks great.”

“Yeah, I and Julia have never seen anything like it even before honestly,” Michael says eyeing a basket of apples.

“Have one, we have plenty.” She says smiling. “It is our main source of food because they are so fresh and so many are made around the same time.” Michael picks an apple off the tree. “Robby take them to their rooms.”

Robby introduces himself to us. He walks us up a few stairs and threw some gardens. We get to a building and walk in. There was a room. The apartment rooms but smaller. Dorm rooms for a school. This place was a school.

He opens a door to one room. “Michael here is your room, Julia comes with me and I’ll take you.”

“Uh, no we stick together.” Michael buds in.

“We don’t have any spare family rooms with two twins.” He says looking at charts on his clipboard.

“We are together. She is my girlfriend.” Michael says putting his arm around me.

“Oh my, I’m so sorry here.” He walks us out to another bigger building. “Queen bed for you.”

We walk in and close the door behind us. The room was pretty big for a normal dorm sized room. It was a mini hotel.

The room had a nice queen bed. It was coated with a nice grey blanket set. Two closets and a nightstand on each side of the bed. On each nightstand, there was a lamp, three bottles of water and a notebook with a pencil. In the cabinet, there was just emptiness. At the end of the bed, there is just enough room to fit a small dinner table. By the table were four matching chairs the same color as the table and bed frame. On the table, there is a flower vase with three fake roses and two fake yellow dandelions. In the corner there is is a mini fridge just the right size. On the wall, there are empty picture frames. On the back of the door, I see a set of knives and other weapons.

“They really do supply don’t they?” I laugh as Michael touches the blades.

The carpet is a nice tan color. I sit on the bed and quickly realized how tired I was. I slipped my shoes off and stuck my feet under the blanket. Michael did the same, I curled up into his arms when he got comfortable. We both passed out. I don’t remember the last time I slept this good. My dream wasn’t even a nightmare. After 7 months of mainly walking and 3 months of hell of apartments, I think we deserve this.

I woke up to a knock at the door. I got up but Michael is still asleep. I open the door and a skinny girl stands there with a cart of food.

“Hello, this is Julia, right?” She smiles and I nod. “I’ve got dinner for two, fully paid, by Brandon.” She pulls the cart in and crowds the room. She sets two plates on the table and puts the food on the plates.

“Fully paid,” I ask looking at the papers on the cart.

“Brandon just used extra points to pay for your food, that’s all.” She says cleaning the mess and looks at Michael who just woke up. “Oh yeah, you're new. We work for points and use them for any food and clothes that you may need or want.” She smiles walking out of the room. “Enjoy.”

“Brandon? That’s the guy who found us, right?” She nods when I asked. She walks out and closes the door behind her.

After she walks out someone walks behind her and tells us to follow them so we can get scanned and checked for bites and such.

After hours of trying to test us for bites, Michael decides that it would be best if he went to go sleep because they had to take much more blood from him due to cut he got on our way in. I wanted to see things so I took advantage of this time and went through the small city.

I walked around for 5 minutes before seeing little kids at the park. Pregnant women walking with a husband and kids. Maybe I’ll be that one day.

I walk through the garden and see lots of vegetables and trees with fruits, real fresh fruits. Peaches, I love peaches so much. I make the best peach cobbler.

I went around to each area and introduced myself best I can. I took a few hours doing fast jobs. Every time I would they would give me something in return. Brandon met me halfway and started helping me around. Flirting with me. I was in love with Michael so I won’t flirt back. I got back to the room and threw the food in the mini fridge.

We talked to some people about the town and how things are run. Not much of a system. After many weeks people started really liking me and Michael.

After a few more months we started making a higher government type style. People came to me with advice and I would help them with crops. Michael and I scavenged with lots of other people going out further than their normal haunts. We took a good amount of time to claim the area.

Maybe after the few more months of building more apartments. Then one day while Michael and I were out alone we met a man. He was rude and Michael didn’t have a good feeling about him. He tried to get us to take him to the camp. We weren’t supposed to. We never suppose to until they pass a test that we don’t know about. We felt like he was a little too rude to bring along so we decided that it was time to leave so we left in our car. Not long after we noticed that we were being followed and that it was that guy. He did say his name was Matthew.

He followed us to a point that he knows where he can get us to the camp. The road only had two places to go to. An old house that zombies claimed years ago. Then our camp. I didn’t have much of a choice but invite him in. After we got past our gate our men cuffed him and threw him into the cell. He was so angry. We questioned him until he couldn’t take the damage anymore. We had to let him out of his misery. He told us to kill him. He wanted to die.

“I won’t kill you unless you tell me WHY YOU ARE HERE.” I started yelling “You deserve the pain. You could’ve killed someone.” He became scared quickly noticing that I wasn’t scared to kill or hurt him for any reason I want.

“Okay, if I tell you, you have to kill me. I don’t want to have to deal with this pain.” He frowns looking down at the blood on his white shirt now dyed red.

“You have my word, give me all the information you know,” I said crouching down to his view.

“Joel, he is my leader. My boss. He rules everyone. Tells everyone what to do. He owns us. He wants you and your people dead. Now you gave him a reason. You're beating his right-hand man. You're going to kill me too.” He says clearly concerned for me.

I shake my head in concern and throw my bag at the wall. “What the hell. After everything we have done to stay away from people.” I yell.

I walk out onto our watch tower and took the sniper. I look through the scope.

“See anything baby?” Michael rubs my shoulder.

“Yes,” I say seeing a few cars approaching. “Three, four, five cars. Vehicles large military ones.”

“Are they coming to save us?” Michael gets excited.

“No, they are coming to kill us. Get everyone out of here! NOW!” Michael runs down the stairs. I can hear every step he takes. Clink clink. I focus on the middle of the scope. After many of the men come out of the vehicle they raise their guns up and start firing.

“Come out now!” someone yells over a speaker. “I just want to talk.” I take my aim at the man next to him. I shoot. “Well, clearly you don’t have a mind for talking.” He raised his hand.

“I want you gone. You can have your guy, but he wants to be dead after what I did to him.” I say taking aim at another man and shooting.

“My guy? Good aim girl, we would love for you to be on our team.” He says looking up at my tower. “I’m Joel.”

“Leave now or die!” I yell back.

“Julia, Julia, we know everything we need to to get in quietly.” He smiles creepily. “I know about Michael and your past wasn’t photography that’s just what you put up with. I know what you did before. I worked under you. I mean,” He laughs “Against you.”

“Joel Question?” I ask, he was my ex’s partner in crime. I found out that he was a criminal trying to get me into the things. I had to take him down. Even though I was in love with him. Joel nods. “I’ll kill you.”

“I’ll kill you? Cut the shit. I’ll kill you before you get the chance. You know the reason he is dead is that you just wouldn’t leave your letter friends for the good stuff” he says angering me more than I was.

He starts walking to his truck. I aim to his right hand with his gun and shot. But I missed it.

“Damn it,” I say in frustration.

He got into the car yelling “is the good guy Deadshot not as good as before” I start shooting as much as I can. Tires, glass, and more.

They drive off and I kept shooting. Michael came up and put his hand on my shoulder.

“What did he mean, Julia?” He asked.

I looked at him. He clearly heads everything he said.

“Nothing it’s nothing. Just the past.” I say watching them through the scope.

“No that’s not a good answer. Tell me. Who did you get killed and why did he say good guy Deadshot?” He looks at me with the curious look he always has on when he wants to know.

“When I was younger I was a special FBI agent. I was really young. Maybe 9 or 10 and it was mostly training. But when I turned 17 it became official and I started missions. When I was 19 my love life was a big part of it all. My boyfriend at the time was caught up into a lot of stuff. I fell in love against my own will and I was supposed to take him down and bring him in but I really couldn’t. One night while we were eating I had some people come into the restaurant and threaten him saying I needed to join the system. When I said no. They were saying they would kill me or him. And I was in love so I joined against the FBI wishes and became more involved. I told people back home and they busted everyone. My boyfriend.” I took a second holding the tears back the whole time. I gulp. “My boyfriend, Justin… he was shot in the process. That right there. His old partner in crime. He was the one who had shot me. But my partner. Shot Justin. I curled up with Justin and he died in my arms. I held in all my feelings and learned to shoot better. I went after Joel for getting us into it. Never could get to him but I fixed hundreds of problems.” I nervously stare through the scope to make sure every single vehicle and person left.

“He is dangerous isn’t he?” Michael asks taking a look for himself.

“He was on the top five most wanted in America for years. Before you know.”

“I guess we have to get out?” Michael says grabbing my arm to help me down the ladder.

“No. He follows he has people out there. He will try to starve us out and kill us when they do. We are good at food right?” I say looking at the gates thinking about changing everything about its safety.

“Yeah, a few months maybe more” he looks at me in the eyes.

“We will be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He loves me so much I just can’t think about losing him.

“Yeah. I love you baby so. Much. I I I can’t lose you.” I stutter.

The next few weeks we kept seeing random people outside. I held a town meeting saying that we can’t let anyone in. No matter what.

I was sitting in my room with all my new room arrangements. New photos of me and Michael. And our dog we found sitting on her bed in the corner.

Michael came in with excitement. “Almost everyone voted for YOU!”

“For me? For what?” I smile thinking it was something super great with his excitement.

“You're the new… leader!” He grabs my arm and turns the radio onto some pop music. He starts dancing with me and I pull away.

“Why didn’t I know about this?” I ask turning the music off.

“I told you ‘people would love for you to lead if you tried’ and you said ‘leading would be great it’s just not what I would do by myself’ well you have me as the co-leader.”

“Umm. Why didn’t you tell me you signed me up for that crap. It’s hard enough trying to figure out what to do with Joel. Keeping up with points and food and work. It’s way too much right now. Even for two people.” I say looking at the clock. “I guess I have no choice then. Let’s go figure this out.”

While I try to get us to this ‘leader’ crap I know Joel is planning something big. I tell everyone to put anything they can into building stronger safer areas around the town. Materials and all. Store as much food as possible and eat decently too. Enough to fight. Training to. 24 hour watches at the towers all around the town. Shoot on sight.

We killed at least 10 stupid idiots at one point.

It took every ounce of my time to take care of this town. We had so much work to do. It was really hard for us all to live off a few different veggies as fruit trees.

Michael was asleep and I decided it was time for me to put my skills together. I got to the watchtower and see one of my closest friends I made here.

“I’m going out. I have some things I need to do. I’ll be careful I promise. When I flash my light twice quickly you can’t shoot me.” I say to her hugging her.

“Okay. I’ll be watching for you. I’ll tell the rest of the towers too.” She hugged me so tight. “Be safe Julia”

I climbed through the gate I made secure just so I could slip out of I needed to. I quickly and quietly run to the woods and behinds trees scoping out the area and moving around further and further.

After getting two miles I got a car and drove off. I got up to a new store and took anything that could I could fit in my bags. I threw my bags in the car and drove. I headed back to base knowing I wouldn’t be able to carry all of these bags back inside. I took an old cruiser bike and made the car I was driving before put it in neutral and let it ride up. Then firing goes off. I did the signal and let them know where I was. Someone at the gate let me in as I quickly drove the bike in there. They close the door behind me as the firing begins to stop. Michael runs up to me grabs my arm and starts yelling at me.

“You are supposed to lead. Protect, meaning yourself too. Why did you leave? Why the hell you put yourself in danger like that?” He lets go realizing he was hurting my arm and I was just taking it.

“Because Michael, protecting includes feeding everyone. I was out getting food so we could eat. We needed anything we could get. All of us. Even the dog.” I say pulling out a big bag of dog food.

He walks away with a grin.

Everyone who saw was laughing and cheering at all the food and new seeds I bought. I gave them out for free around to the people who need them most.

After a long time of trying to calm people down from their excitement, I got to go home for once in a month or more. Sometime I would just pass out while in a town meeting or on a date with Michael. I just never had time to sleep. I walk into the room hoping he would be asleep. I open the door turn and walk in backward to be quieter.

“You could’ve gotten killed, Julia.” He says reading a book.

“I’m sorry, but you know that I needed to get food for everyone,” I say changing into something more comfortable.

I lay in bed and instantly fall asleep. It went on for a few days where I would get sleep. It was the best sleep I remember having for the last three months.

The next month or so we trained hard. We built more weapons and bullets. Fixed buildings and the walls.

After three weeks I decided we were ready. Trained and stronger than before. We took guns and searched the area. After searching for no deaths, no shots, and no noises. Everything was normal. We went back and sent out 10 people to get more food for us. Keeping us updated on the surroundings.

That same night I was on watch and heard a person’s voice. We turned on every light hearing the gate moving. In the spotlight I see Joel. I aim and fire but right before it hits him a zombie comes out in front and takes the bullet. He moved just enough not to get hit. He runs into a car that was sitting there for years. Drives it away but throwing many noisemakers and five fire sticks making at least hundreds of zombies to our door. Everyone lines up like a war as they pour in. I shoot the tires of Joel’s car causing him to turn and crash. I shoot through the glass and hit him right in the right shoulder. Then in his head.

Dead.

I pull out an automatic machine gun and shoot from up top. Killing lots of zombies. They pour in and people are just dying. More death than I’ve ever seen. I try my best to save them but after ten minutes there were just so many. After an hour all the zombies were gone. We let the ones who needed to be killed go. Lots of losses. I get back to my house to see Michael and make sure he was okay. He wasn’t there.

I run to the Medic to see if he was hurt while I was yelling his name. He wasn’t there either. At this point, I was crying. I couldn’t hold it in. I went to a scientist. Dr. Mays. She was working on the cure or even just an immunity.

“Dr. Mays? Is it ready? We could really use it.” I say running in there. Michael was sitting on her chair.

“Julia?” He runs up to me to hug me. He wouldn’t kiss me though.

“Michael, baby are you alright?” He looks at Dr. Mays as I look at him.

“No, Julia.” He raises his arm sleeve and I see blood dripping down his arm. A zombie bite covers most of the arm and the sight of it scares me. I feel a tear dripping down my face.

“It’s okay, Julia. I think it’s ready. He can be the start of a new beginning.” He kisses my forehead and sits on the chair.

“Don’t let me turn baby girl.” He says handing me his gun. I raise the gun up crying.

“Michael, no more giving me stressful emotions today.” I lower the gun and she injects him with the cure. Nothing happens that we could see.

“Nothing happened. What does that mean?” I say looking in his eyes.

“It didn’t kill him. Maybe it saved him. We will keep an eye on him, Julia. You need to go fix the city. I’ll make more copies as soon as the time comes.” Dr. Mays says pushing me away. Michael stays in the testing area in the research lab.

“Your right. Radio to me as soon as you know. Michael, I love you.” He nods at me and I help the city get back together.

Over the radio an hour later. I heard my name. I pick it up off my belt and listen.

“Julia? It worked.” Michaels' voice goes over the sizzling radio with a smile rising on my face.