Strays

Jinx barked at Izzy, telling her to wake up. Izzy woke and let out a big yawn. 

“Hurry up, Izzy!” Jinx growled. “We need to go hunting! Flame won’t be happy!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Izzy muttered as she got up and stretched. “Lets go now.” Jinx sprinted off with Izzy a few tail-lengths behind. Suddenly Jinx stopped and Izzy nearly slammed into her. Jinx twitched her ears, and when she heard a rustling in the bush she bounded off in that direction. A rabbit shot out and Jinx chased it until she finally pounced and sunk her claws into the rabbits fluffy pelt. 

“Nice catch.” Izzy commented. Jinx fluffed out her chest fur and walked proudly back to camp. She stopped at a round flat rock and dropped the rabbit on it. Then she found a shady spot under a tree and curled up. Jinx woke at a paw prodding her. She jumped up and whirled around. It was just Flame, the leader of the pack. 

“Sleeping in?” Flame asked. “What about hunting?”
“I already went.” Jinx replied nodding to the rabbit she had caught. “I caught that rabbit.”

“Izzy said she caught it.” Flame barked flatly.

“What?! I caught it! That little...” she broke off as Izzy walked out of her cave. Jinx ran at Izzy and pounced on the small husky. She clawed at Izzy’s belly while Izzy whimpered under her. 

“Enough!” Flame barked. “Jinx! Get off Izzy Immediately!” Jinx jumped off Izzy and walked back to her shady spot with her shoulders slumped. 

“Now who actually caught the rabbit?” Flame asked.

“It was me.” Jinx growled.

Izzy flattened her ears against her head and opened her mouth to protest, but when she saw the look on Jinx’s face, she decided better of it. 

“It was Jinx.” Izzy mumbled.

“Izzy, come see me in my den.” Flame growled. “And Jinx, you’re dismissed.”

Jinx rolled her eyes and stalked out of camp

“Izzy.” She growled. “Izzy, Izzy, Izzy. All about you, isn’t it? You’ll do anything to impress Flame.”

Jinx decided that she’d go to the waterfall. She walked to the waterfall and sat down by the water, staring at her reflection. She heard paws padding towards her and spun around. It was another dog, male, and he was silvery-gray. She didn’t recognize him, or his scent, so surely he wasn’t from her pack. 

“What do you want?” She growled.

“I just want a swim. Have you noticed how hot it is today?” He asked calmly. 

“This is our territory!” Jinx snarled.

“Who’s ‘our’?” asked the mysterious dog.

“My pack.” Jinx growled. “Now get out of out territory!”

“Okay, okay!” He mumbled. “I just wanted a swim.”

“Fine. One swim.” Jinx replied with narrowed eyes. “Then get out!”

Jinx sprinted away, back to camp. When she walked through the entrance, there was yapping and pups jumped on Jinx. Jinx pretended to be taken down barking;

“Spare me!” Then she jumped up and the pups rolled off her. They ran back to her and clung onto her legs while she stumbled to Izzy. 

“Pups!” called Fern. 

Fern ran over to Jinx.

“Come on Floss, Ash, and Lint. Stop bothering them” Fern told her pups.

Jinx laughed.

“They aren’t bothering us.” she barked to Fern.

Fern looked at Jinx happily.

“Thank’s for keeping them occupied.” Fern barked. 

Then she turned and walked back to her box, her pups trailing behind her. Jinx smiled at the mother and her pups, then turned back to Izzy.

“What did Flame say?” Jinx asked.

“Nothing.” Izzy mumbled.

“Tell me!” Jinx whined.

“Fine! He told me that I had to clean the camp for the next week, as apparently, I’m not allowed to lie to the pack leader. Like I didn’t know that already!” Izzy growled.

“Then, why’d you do it?” Asked Jinx.

“Because! I was bored of hunting! Is that okay with you? Have you finished your big questionings?” Izzy barked.

“You don’t have to get your fur ruffled. Who knew you could be so dramatic?” Asked Jinx.

“Say that one more time, and your dead.” Growled Izzy.

“Who. Knew. You. Could. Be. So. Dramatic.” Snarled Jinx.

Izzy jumped on Jinx snarling, and clawed at her spine. Seeing as Izzy was so light, Jinx threw her off and pinned her to the ground. She bit into Izzy’s nose, and Izzy whimpered.

“What are you doing?” A voice said from behind them. 

Jinx jumped off Izzy, sat up, and gave her chest fur a few embarr*censored*ed licks. The voice was Flames.

“That’s twice you’ve been in a fight today!” Flame growled. “You should know better than to attack your packmates! Hasn’t anyone taught you that?”

“It was Jinx’s fault!” Izzy barked. “She said I was dramatic!”

“So you pounce on her?” Demanded Flame.

Izzy looked at the ground.

“Well, no.” She barked as she shuffled her paws.

“Jinx, why did you retaliate?” Asked Flame.

Jinx mouth dropped open.

“It wasn’t my fault!” She protested. “Izzy jumped on me!”

Zombies

“Ew!” me, chelsea and Isabel exclaimed. There was a dead body just ahead of us, that had been gutted and partially eaten. The sight wasn’t gross, as we were used to that now, but the smell was putrid. I kicked the body aside and heard a grumble. I whirled around and a zombie, who had obviously just been feasting on this unfortunate person, was crouching a few metres away. 

“Get down!” I yelled to Isabel and chelsea who immediately obeyed. I raised my gun and shot like there was no tomorrow. The zombie fell on the ground and writhed in pain as I shot more. Finally, I thought it was dead and went over to it. Just to be sure, I shot it in the head one more time. 

“Good one!” Isabel said as I reached into its mouth and pulled out its tongue. 

“Want a little souvenir?” I laughed as I held the tongue out to her and Chelsea. Isabel pushed my hand away and laughed.

“No, you better keep it for your collection.” she laughed as we headed home. Its 2010 and the world has been over-run by zombies. It started out when a somebody got bitten by a rabid animal in 2009 and got a serious case of rabies. Which of course made their brain swell and they went blood thirsty. Zombies only have two emotions. Anger and hunger. Thats all they needed to start tearing people up and over-run the human race. Me, Chelsea and Isabel are three of the... thousand people left. We did have another friend, Zania, but she disappeared a while ago, and I suspect she has been eaten by zombies. We got to our house and opened the bolted door. Me and Isabel had zombie-proofed the house. We had Covered the windows with titanium, Made a new door out of 5 inch thick metal and had our room in the attic, which the door was made of steel. If a zombie managed to get through that, we had a room made of completely titanium that was stuffed with food, and would last us long enough for the zombies to go away. I shoved the tongue into a jar with the rest of the tongues I had pulled out. Isabel wrinkled her nose. “Lauren, that’s disgusting!” she said as she looked at the tongues, and I swear, her face went green. Chelsea shuffled a bit and then asked

“What’s it for?”

“When there’s no more zombies I can show people it.” I said as I looked proudly at my collection.

“Dream on.” Isabel muttered. 

When the zombie infestation broke out, me, Isabel and chelsea swore to never trust anybody but each other. We would not become zombies. I opened the fridge for a snack and realized we hadn’t loaded it for a long time. 

“I’ll go get some food!” Chelsea volunteered. 

“Sure,” I muttered and threw her a gun.

Felicity came into the room and asked

“Why have you got a gun?”

“Because I’m going to get food.” Chelsea replied.

“I wanna come!” Nagged my little sister.

“Fine.” Chelsea said.

“Yay!” Felicity squealed. Felicity was the youngest of us, only 9 years old, and we called her Fizz. Chelsea and Fizz went out the door while me and Isabel waited. About 20 minutes later Chelsea and Fizz rushed back into the room puffing with their hands full of plastic bags with food in them. They lay the food on the bench and sat down recovering their breath. Isabel sat next to them as I watched.

“So, how’d it go?” Isabel asked them.

“It was.... AWESOME!” Fizz yelled excitedly.

“Good. How much food did you get?” asked Isabel.

“Enough to last us another week.” Chelsea said.

“Thats great,” I said. “I’ll take Isabel next time.” We all sat down and had a snack. I hopped on the computer and looked on Facebook. Nobody was on. Facebook wasn’t Facebook anymore. It was ‘If you are still human, you are alone.’ Not the most welcoming site in the world. Well, I looked on the bright side and went to play rescreatu. I could play freely now as nobody could ban me! It got kind of boring though. So I stopped playing. I got off the computer and dragged myself to our gun room. Me and Isabel had raided all the gun shops and had millions of guns in our gun room. I got a uzi and another random big machine gun. I also always carried my lucky knife. It was quite a brutal knife and was the type you saw in horror movies. Chelsea is scared out of her skin of it because she’s freaked out of knives. I walked to the door, the uzi shoved in my pocket with most of it sticking out and my knife in my handmade knife belt, along with eight other knives in the same belt.

“Where are you going?” Isabel asked. 

“To go find a destructive car.” I replied simply. She followed me out of the house obviously scared that she was unarmed. I sighed. She wouldn’t go away. So I handed her the uzi. She was delighted as uzi were her favourite gun. We aren’t actually allowed to be driving because we were all only 10, but no adult could stop us so we went ahead and got a car anyway. We found lots of cars but none of them looked mean enough. Finally I spotted the ultimate zombie killing car. There was a kind of mini monster truck that was still huge, just not as big as those giant ones you see on TV. It had gigantic knives on the front that would cause carnage wherever it was. I whooped with excitement. This was the car of my dreams. I couldn’t help a giant smile light up my face. Then Isabel screamed. I whirled around and asked 

“What?!” 

“It’s a ford!” Isabel yelled trembling with hate.

“So?!” I asked.

“Fords are ugly and you know I hate those pieces of crap!” She complained. I got out my knife and sliced off the brand label.

“Happy now?” I asked furiously.

“Yeah.” she replied, “But how do we get in?” She was right it was too high to just step into. So I grabbed the foot place and hauled my self up onto it. “Lauren, I’m too short!” Isabel wailed. I held on to a metal pipe on the side of the truck and held out my hand. She grabbed it and I pulled with all my might. Luckily Isabel was only 27kg so it made her easier to lift up. Finally with one last giant haul Isabel was in the truck. “Thanks.” said Isabel. 

“No prob, but dude, you said you were 27kg. You’re like 24kg.” I replied.

“We have been losing weight because food is becoming scarce. You know how we already are limiting ourselves to 3 bags of food and drinks a week. You used to be 32kg. You are now about 29kg. Chelsea used to be 37kg. She’d be 34kg by now. Felicity used to be 29kg. She is now 26kg.” Isabel said with a shrug. Isabel is even skinnier than the scrawny twig used to be. Thats why she’s the lightest. No, she’s not anorexic, she is just scrawny. She is quite short too. Chelsea is the heaviest because she’s quite broad, and she’s a bit taller than the rest of us. I’d be 155cm’s, and she’d be about... 160cm’s? Even though she’s the second youngest, as her birthday is april fools day, April the 1st, 2000. The youngest is Felicity, who is May 25th, 2001. Then it’s chelsea. Then it’s Isabel, March 18th 2000, then it’s me, March 14th 2000. Isabel tries calling me a granny, then I remind her she’s four days after me, and if I was a granny, then she’d be too. When I say that Isabel folds her arms and pouts. 

“Yes I know that.” I told her. Then I heard a snarl from a few metres behind me. Me and Isabel jumped down. I grabbed my gun, and shot the zombie in the chest. Isabel shot wildly though she missed each time, and I figured she just didn’t want to look like a wimp. Not to humans but to zombies, who could make an easy meal out of a wimp. The zombie fell as I shot it in the head. I walked over to it and it was grunting while having a kind of seizure. I shot it in the head and Isabel was still shooting crazily. Never trust Isabel with a gun, I made a self-note. Isabel then shot me in the foot. I yelped in surprise and pain. Isabel realized the zombie was dead and she had shot me in the foot. 

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry Lauren!” she exclaimed. With the tears welling up in my eyes I pulled out the zombies tongue. Isabel was examining my foot when I turned around and rubbed the tongue all over her face. She screamed. Then she looked at me angrily. I laughed hard, trying to cover up the pain, so she didn’t think me, the toughest of the friends, was turning soft.

“Why’d you do that?!” she demanded furiously.

“You shot me in the foot!” I pointed out.

“So?! A zombie tongue?! Really?!” Isabel yelled.

“Come down woman!” I muttered. “You’d rather have a zombie tongue rubbed on your face than be shot in the foot.” I told her.

“Whatever.” she mumbled. I started the truck and drove quite horribly home. I smashed through the fence and parked the car clumsily. I jumped out of the window and landed in a crouch. Isabel tried to do the same to look cool, but she landed on her face, and got a bleeding nose. I p*censored*ed her a rag, and she wiped her nose and threw the rag away as we didn’t want to attract zombies. We knocked on the door and Fizz opened it for us. We got in and locked the door. 

“Lauren,” Chelsea moaned.

“What did I do this time?” I asked and shot a glare at Chelsea.

“You smashed a hole in the fence!” she told me.

“And? I’ll fix it! Jeez!” I said.

“Well I’m not going to.” Chelsea shuddered. Typical. She was scared out her skin of outside just because of zombies. 

“Scared.” I muttered. I grabbed my tool-belt and a gun that I put in a sling over my shoulder. “But before I go outside, I’m just going to bandage my foot up, I said while glaring at Isabel.

“Why?” Chelsea asked.

“Because somebody here shot me in the foot.” I told Chelsea, as I nodded to Isabel. 

Isabel giggled and skipped to her room. I rolled my eyes and walked to the bathroom, where the medical supplies were. There, I got out the bandages and started wrapping my foot up. Once it was done I decided it would be best if I got some shoes on, after all, I had been walking around without shoes on for the whole day. I went to the garage and pulled down the attic ladder. Then I climbed up and opened the closet, got out my chucks and put them on. My chucks where black with a white rubber part above where your toes go, and have fluro green laces. They go halfway up my shin, but you can’t see that because of my tattered old jeans. I climbed back down the ladder, and when back to the lounge.

“Oh, look! Lauren has shoes on for once!” Chelsea teased. 

“Haha.” I said as I glared at her. I opened the door, and walked out to the broken fence. A few hours p*censored*ed, consisting of hard work, putting the new planks up, and hammering nails into them, to keep them standing. Just as I was nearly finished, I heard a grunt then gurgling. “Really?” I asked myself as I turned around to face the zombie that was going to attack. It ran at me, and I let it get half way, to think it had a chance, but when it reached that half way point, I blew it’s head off. I looked at the gun astonished. Ah! It was a rocket launcher. Crap, I was meant to get a smaller gun. I turned back around and finished the fence. As I finished I remembered something. I had forgotten to pull out this zombies tongue. I walked over to its head, and I p*censored*ed it’s headless body. I reached into it’s mouth and pulled out it’s tongue, then walked back to the door.