The story of Taylor and her rise to command. Swamp fan fiction.

Look... I just want to start this by saying, I'm not a military person. I'd never in my life used a weapon before that night. I don't understand what happened, or how I did what I did. But they all assume I'm hiding something from my past. And I'm not.

My life changed completely since it happened. Then again, everyone's did.

So it was just an ordinary evening. I was sitting in my house, waiting for my mother to arrive. She was traveling from her home town to come stay with me, since her health really wasn't good. I was worried.

Then, suddenly, I heard a terrible scream. I leapt up and ran to the window, heart racing, to see what was going on.

For a moment, I didn't even know what I was seeing.

They looked like people. Sort of. No, that's not the whole truth. They looked like corpses. Corpses given life.

This couldn't be real! Zombies don't exist...

But denying it was pointless. They did exist. And they were attacking people.

I saw the source of the scream then, and wished I hadn't. From the little left of the corpse...  I didn't recognise who it could be. The little left of it. Suddenly feeling sick, I looked quickly away.

The zombies, if that's what they were, were everywhere. I didn't see very many people around. Probably locked up in their houses. For all the good that'd do, they'd be trapped when the zombies broke in.

Maybe the zombies realized this. Since many of them started running towards houses, trying to break in. To my horror I saw a few of them heading this way, towards my house!

I had to move. To run... TO do something. But I just couldn't. I was so afraid I couldn't move, I could hardly even breathe.

And that's when I realized I recognised one of them. My neighbour...Charls... the man I'd known for almost a decade!

How could this be? Charls? A zombie? Just the thought of him dying twisted my heart. But for him to be reborn as a zombie was impossible. Is anything impossible on a night like this?

Somehow, seeing him shocked my brain into action. There was no way of protecting myself in the house. They'd get in eventually and I had nothing with which to fight back.

The only option was to run. Run where? I didn't know, but no time to think about it.

I ran for the door, threw it open...and froze, as I realized I was standing face to face with a zombie!

Somehow, this one was almost 8 feet tall. It seemed to have been just as surprised as I did, which probably saved my life.

Without thinking I ran into the house, towards the window.

The zombie was larger than me. But I was quick. Unfortunately, I didn't have an easy way to open the window. But there was no way I could slip past the thing to get to the door... Or was there...

Everywhere except the livingroom was dark. I ran through the hallway, and then by shear femiliarity with the house knew I was near the entrance to the dining room. Quietly I slipped into it.

As I'd hoped, the zombie ran past. I waited for a few tense seconds, but not too long. not till it realized I was lost. Quietly I slipped out, then ran for the door.

I almost made it.

I don’t really know how it happened, but I tripped. I fell to the ground with a crash. I didn’t think I was injured? But I was disoriented.

Cursing myself I tried to get up, but stumbled.

That’s when I heard the zombie catching up. Fast.

Instinctively I rolled away and scrambled to my feet, trying to run.

Then I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. I screamed as the thing dug it's claw like nails into my skin, I was unable to pull free.

Just then, the window behind me shattered, shards of glass flying into the room as if something very heavy had been thrown against it.

Many of them embedded themselves into my back, but they also caused that zombie to forget me for a moment and turn. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw more zombies, smaller ones, behind me. But I didn't think about it.

Pulling myself free with effort,  I ran as fast as I could, and by as much sheer luck as anything else, made it through the door.

I kept running, now being chased by an entire group of the things.  But I knew I couldn't make it to safety, if that even was possible. I was bleeding and exhausted.

Suddenly I heard a gun being fired. My heart leapt. Was somebody fighting back nearby?

"Taylor! Thank goodness! I saw that tyrant and feared the worst!"

"Alex! I didn't know you were in town." I said, shocked and relieved.

"Long story." He said. Suddenly I noticed his military uniform, and the weapon he was holding, a gun of some kind. I don't know too much about them.

"Listen." HE said. "I'll get rid of these zombies, but I can't escort you back to the safe zone though I want to, I'm sorry. There's a large group of children who were having a party in Lilly's house, I need to go there."

"Wait. Safe zone?" I asked. "Where is that?"

"Across the bridge and north, one of the stores." He said. "You'll see the guards. Here. I know you're not trained to fight but this should help. It’s an MP5, and here's some ammo."

"Thanks so much." I said, as he quickly showed me how to load and fire the gun.

"Least I can do." HE said, having shot all of the zombies he started running off. "Take care, best of luck."

I turned, running towards the bridge.

I lived on the east side of brush creek, but I'd regularly go across to buy things, so I knew my way pretty well. Strangely, most of the zombies I'd seen from my window had vanished. Where were they?

As I turned onto another street, I got my answer. Many of them were trying to break in to the church. To my surprise, a lot of my neighbours, most of whom had never touched a weapon before, were trying to stop them.

"Taylor!" Somebody called. "Can you please help?"

"What are you doing?" I shouted back. "You can't stop this, there're too few of you. I've heard there's a safe zone somewhere, come on!"

"No." Someone else said. "Listen, a group of injured people is hiding here, they can't make it to safety fast enough. A few soldiers were trying to help us hold them off here, but...

I hesitated. Part of me knew that I couldn't do much to help these people, the best thing I could do was run to the safe zone and try to get help, though I knew it was probably too late. I winced as another person fell to the ground, bleeding terribly.

"Another thing you need to know", the person who first spoke to me said, "your mother is in here. She's safe, but..."

I didn't hear the rest. Fear surged through me, worse even than that moment when I was sure I was dead. There was no way I could run now, knowing that.

I hurried to join them. Somebody, trying to shoot down a zombie attacking a woman trying to reload her gun, accidentally hit the woman instead. Another one down. We were getting overwhelmed!

"Can we fall back?" I asked. "If the others are at  the back of the building..."

"We can't do that, the closer we let those things come to the people who can't defend themselves, the worse."

"Well at least if we stand at the entrance, all the zombies will have to come through the door." I said impatiently, trying tentatively to shoot and missing. "That way they can't surround us from all directions, and we can all just aim out the doorway."

I had no idea if it'd work. But with no one in charge, it didn't take long for everyone to just follow my lead. The door had been broken, so we just ran into the doorway and formed a line right inside, all aiming out. I found myself in the center, directly in front of the door.

"Well you got them into this." I told myself. "It’s your job to get them out."

It seemed to be working, maybe? The first few zombies that entered fell quickly. My shooting was a lot better, but unfortunately there was only ever one person who really had room to aim properly.

"Let’s fall back a little more." I called. "I know it’s risky, but we don't have room to aim, pressed up  against the wall this way."

No protests, this time. That worried me. Was I leading them to failure?

But we did seem to be having better luck. More zombies started going down, and I soon  lost myself in the task of shooting, and reloading whenever there was a pause in the action. It probably took almost no time at all, but to me it felt like hours. I didn't understand why my hands weren't shaking like the others.

And then, Miraculously, it was over.

"Is everybody alright?" I asked.

Stupid question. Nobody was, of course. Including me. Most of us were hurt, some bleeding.

"Taylor! That was a miracle that we made it through that!" Somebody said.

"It was." I agreed. "You all did amazing, really!"

"Are you kidding?" Somebody else asked. "It was your idea to go in, without that we'd have been surrounded and dead! Any success is yours."

I smiled. "It was a guess." I said. "But, listen, we're not safe yet. Those things could come back any minute, and I'm almost out of ammo. We have to get back to safe zone right now where there are actual trained soldiers to help  protect us."

"How?" Somebody asked. "We'll draw attention if we all go. And even if we go in small groups, most of the people in the back can't run. Many are badly hurt."

That was a good question, one that I had no good answer for. To be honest, it was a miracle that we'd survived this much. I doubted most of us were ready for another battle, even a smaller one. I myself had got a lot more cuts and scratches despite my best efforts, and so did all of us.

Suddenly, I soon realized that everyone was looking to me for an answer. I was no leader, what did they see in me? I was just another one of them.

Wait. Following that line of thought... I just had a crazy idea.

The people seemed to see me as someone in control, of course all that was about to change the moment we got to the safe zone. But then, what if the zombies were fooled into seeing us, all of us, as trained soldiers? What if the zombies were the ones to run?

The thing was, most of us didn't have weapons. That right there would destroy any such illusion.

"How many people were originally here?" I asked. "Did you  have any soldiers with you?"

"A few..." Somebody said. "They'd just come from fighting somewhere else, they were hurt too badly. They killed half the zombies before dying..."

"Are those their weapons?" I asked.

"No." The man replied. "They'd come from the safe zone with extras to give people who were able to fight. The soldier's weapons, and a few others from other people, are probably still lying around out there."

"Alright." I said. "In that case, I have an idea."

It took us some time to prepare, but soon we were as ready as we could be. There was no way to make some people look like soldiers, for instance my mom, leaning on her walking stick, and somebody with a broken leg who could barely walk. But now, it should look to the zombies like a group of armed soldiers escorting a few wounded people. Hopefully not worth risking a fight.

As we walked out, me in the lead, I tried to look confident. Calm. Not sure how well I did, because deep down I was terrified. I knew nothing about zombies. What if they weren't intelligent enough to run, or, worse, were intelligent enough to see through the disguise? Too late to turn back...

We made it onto the bridge without incident. But as we crossed it and turned north, about 7  zombies wandered into sight. They saw us, and hesitated. I almost thought they could hear my heart pounding in my chest.

"Point your weapons at them." I muttered. We did, most of us were nearly out of ammo, but I hoped the zombies didn't know that. On the other hand... if they were some mutated kind of humans, how human were they still?

It probably took less than a second. But it felt like an eternity. If I was wrong...

Suddenly the zombies turned, and fled around the corner.

All around me I heard sighs of relief.

It took us some time, and 2 more similar encounters with zombies, but we finally made it.

As much as I'd like to, I honestly don't remember what happened when we got there. I remember everyone being surprised to see us, I remember repeating the story of how we escaped nearly 20 times. I remember being told that the situation was even worse than I'd feared, other nearby towns had also gone silent. Supplies were low, casualties high, and the undead just kept coming.

But it was as if my brain just...couldn't function anymore. The serge of adrenalin that let me keep going was just over.

I could spend weeks just talking about all the things that happened to me between that day and now, how I quickly realized I couldn't just sit by and let the others handle it, how I learned to fight, went on missions to retrieve supplies and rescue people and families. But what summarizes is better than anything is this short speech I made at several different safe zones as I visited them.

"We're all worried about surviving, and rightly so." I said. "We're all worried about existing for another day, and again, rightly so.

But surviving isn't enough. We have to regrow. Rebuild from the ground up. We can't just find food, we have to grow it. We can't just find weapons and ammo, we have to make them. We can't just stay as a hundred unconnected pockets of safety, we have to unite. We have to be the Predators, not the prey. TO hunt, not be the hunted.

Only united can we find a way to be rid of the undead and return to our regular lives. I'm not accusing you of not doing your best to achieve this, I admire the courage shown by all of you. I'm saying this because so many of us seem without a goal. We have to have a long term goal, whether or not its achievable. We need a purpose beyond just surviving, that's one of the things that really makes us different from the zombies. They just want to survive. We, are going to live!"