Chapter 14 -

 “We are almost there,” Bella says for the tenth time, but none of us seem to be buying it anymore.

 Eddy grunts, “You’ve said that countless times, we’ve been walking for two hours, it’s getting dark and I’m sure the kids are tired."

 “I’m not tired,” Joan says in her low pitch voice.

 “Me too, just relax, we are almost there,” Mike says, sounding assuring.

  A low growling sound echoes, bringing us to a halt but Bella keeps moving. “Don’t worry, there’s no way they’ll get here.”

 “How sure are you?” Eddy asks as we keep walking.

 “Zombies can’t swim, they can’t climb, and they don’t sleep.”

 “I never knew Zombies don’t sleep,” Larry says.

Bella shrug, “I’ve never seen a sleeping zombie.”

 Shortly after, se stop in front of a large hollow space inside a mountain.

  Bella pulls out a torch which hardly bright up the darkness. As scary as the dark cave may appear, Joan and Mike seem not to be frightened. I wonder how these kids are coping in this new scary world.

 Mike and I had a little discussion while we were walking and his story sounds disheartening. It’s tough to see one’s parent bitten and scared by ones mother’s claw in an attempt to run.

Mike may look small but he's gone through what no child should ever go through. Luckily he found Bella who’s now his guardian angel.

 “Here we are,” Bella says as we come out of the dark cave, stopping in front of a red iron door.

 Bella knocks the door which echoes loudly.

 “Password?” A voice from the other side says.

 Bella scoffs “Ben, I don’t have time for this.”

 The door lock clicks and slowly opens.

 A teenage blonde boy stares at us as we step in, looking closely at him, one could imagine the horror he’s been through. The fact that his left eye is gone and a carved wood replacing his feet up to the ankle. His facial smile on sighting us seem to bother me.

 “Who are they?” Matt ask Bella as she steps in beside him.

 “They saved us,” Mike cuts in.

 “Really,” Matt says as he shuffles towards us, one after the other, he gives us a light handshake. “I’m Matt, nice to meet you.”

 “I’m Xiao,” I reply as he shakes me.

 “Are you Chinese?” he asks.

 I reply with a slight nod and Matt smiles showing his upper teeth.

 “Let’s get inside, our guest needs some rest.” Bella says.

 “..And they are hungry too,” Joan adds as we walk into a building filled with kids running around, giggling and calling each other names.

 They all quiet down as we step in, with smile on their faces, they rush to Bella throwing themselves on her. It’s funny how these kids seem to forget that their guardian is just few years older and probably still a teenager.

 “Ok, that’s enough guys,” Matt says, then he turns to the old wall clock, “Who’s hungry?”

 Matt pours milk into a bowl of cocoa cereal, handing it to me with a smile as usual. With twenty kids in the room, I wonder how Bella manage to care for them all. She seem to have some kind of leadership qualities that makes the kids look up to her.

 A roar of laughter echoes as the kids discuss amongst themselves. Their voices are so low as they continuing whispering. Ever since the Pandemic struck, I’ve only seen few kids, mostly kids who aren’t smiling anymore, but these ones seem happy than any usual kid in a normal world.

 “Excuse me,” A little black girl in low cut says as she sits beside me. She turns to look at me.

 “Is it true that all Chinese can fight, my daddy once said that they can.”

I rub her hair and place my hand on her shoulder, “Fighting isn’t in here…” I point to her hands, “It’s in here,” I place my hand on her chest, "Most human can fight, but it depends how fast your mind speaks to your fist. And of course, a number of Chinese knows k****u, but over the years we’ve adopt other martial arts like Karate from Korea, Samurai sword fight from Japan, Taekwondo from the Korea, jiujitsu form Shangai, Taichi k****u from China, Capoeira and Vale-tudo from Brazil, also Kendo from Japan.”

 The little girl eyes widens, “Woah, that’s a whole lot of martial art.”

 “There’s more.”

 “Really? Teach me Kung fu.”

 “It’s not that easy as it seems on Tv” I try to explain but she insist. Knowing that I’ll be gone tomorrow, I’d better not make promises that I can’t fulfill”

 “Ok, Cynthia..Time to go to bed,” The little girl frowns immediately Matt calls her name.

 The kids leave the room then Bella leads us to a large room that used to be a cold room until she transformed it into a bed room hoping that she’ll find more people to occupy it.

 “Goodnight guys,” Bella says as she turns to leave.

 “Where are you off to?” Larry asks as he lays on the mat.

 “Someone has the watch the night. Matt turn was yesterday, today is my turn.”

 I stand up and pick a book beside me, “I’ll come with you.”

 “You need to rest.” She says.

 “You also need to rest,” I say.

  Bella nods, “Ok, if you insist.”

 I sit on the rooftop staring at nothing, then someone taps me in the back and hands over a cup of hot coffee. The smell of night coffee reminds me of my days at the University, I used to consume a lot of it before studying at night

 “Thanks,” I say as Bella sits on the chair beside me.

 “I have you to thank, you really did well today.”

  I scoff, “You’ve also paid back in double.”

 “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself if any of those kids die again.”

 I pause and turn to look at her tear filled eyes.

 “It’s ok,” I say, holding her hands.

 “They used to be more than this, but I lost most of them in supply runs and some gets infected. I don’t know if I can keep up with this anymore.”

 “Don’t say that,” I pull her closer and she sobs on my shirt. At that moment I realize she’s just a teenage with an heavy burden.

 “Sorry,” she scoffs and pulls away from me, “sometimes I get too emotional.”

 “It’s fine,” I say. “I guess the apocalypse changed a lot of things.”

 “Yeah,” Bella says, staring at her bow.

 “May I?” I reach for her bow and she nods. Staring at the beautiful stainless black bow, I admire it's design. "What's FAC?” I ask, staring at the word written on it.

 “French Archery Championship. I won the award two years before the whole zombie saga. My coach and I arrived at this island with some other young players. When we were done, we called for a chopper to take us back but none arrived, not until a ship filled with zombies arrived at the shore. By the time we realize what’s going on, a lot of lives were lost and lots of people gets infected.

 “I was able to gather some kids and rescue others. Matt lost his leg trying to save his friend but he got stuck in a rubble of a collapsed building with a zombie who poke Matt’s eye with it’s claw. I saved Matt and I had to shoot his zombie friend who already pull out Matt’s eye. It was a gory thing to behold.

We found this place filled with abundant groceries. It Seems to be an abandoned warehouse, and we decided to stay here with the protection it offers. Though, we haven’t had any zombie attack here, but I still don’t want to let my guard down.”

 “Wow, you’ve been through a lot, Thankfully you are safe now.”

 Bella scoffs. “Save? Those zombies can penetrate any place, it’s just a matter of time, I just hope we’ll be able to last longer here,”

 Bella drifts to silence and I turn my gaze to the gate, staring at nothing in particular. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no way a zombie will get in here. By the time I turn to look at Bella again, she’s already fast asleep. Slowly, I lay back on the chair and my eyes shut gradually until a peaceful deep sleep takes over.