I'll say it, I'm not proud of this.

But I couldn't leave this story without ending.

Brothers

We never did finish that birdhouse. There was just a certain sense of... darkness, if you could say that, around it. After Dad was arrested, I left it on the windowsill of the house. My aunt and uncle were supportive enough to take me in, and treated me like their own. It's almost as good as when I had Mom and Dad. Almost.

The most obvious was the fact that I was stuck with seven boys. Two of them, Nick and Travis, were real pains in the asses. They always cheated their way out of anything, it wasn't hard to tell they were going to be on the streets. Maybe they'd do good, though.

"Hey, give it back!" I shouted, stretching my arm as far out as possible to grab the baseball. Travis snickered, holding it high above his head, towering over anyone else his age. Nick stood nearby, half-watching, half-wanting to do something else.

"What company?" I asked a second time. Travis was... leaving? "Mann Co., they pay great money and they need a runner," he said, patting my back. Nick was all but too pissed to want to be near him, and had been hiding in his room since I found out. I don't blame him, either. Travis was the second in command to Nick in our trio.

But now, like all of the older brothers, Travis was leaving us for some sketchy war. Just to make sure we get money. I didn't want him to go, but we knew he had to do this for his ma/my aunt. The family needed the money, and Nick and I could barely support each other, let alone everyone else. That's when Travis said he got the letter with his name on it. These hidden men somehow knew him and his talents and wanted to hire him for it. Not even 20 minutes later, he was gone.

Then Nick disappeared. No warning, no heads-up, he just vanished, off on his own. I still have yet to know if he survived the streets.

Of course, I decided that I couldn't handle it anymore. My aunt was receiving plenty of money from Travis, and my uncle was always working undercover somewhere, and I never got to see him often. I realized I didn't need to live in the shadows of my cousins. Hell, even Nick left to live alone after Travis was gone. I wrote a small letter, and placed it on my bed after packing up everything I'd need. I... No, I needed to give it one more look over. My aunt always blamed herself for all of her sons running away, I wanted to make sure her nephew wasn't the same to her. But as I tried reading it, I realized I just... Couldn't.

I couldn't question why as everything went black.

"Shit, John get up!" I heard someone yell. My entire body screamed in pain, but I was too exhausted to do anything about it. What had happened? Why was I in all of this pain. Was I dead for a while back there?

Then it all came back.

The Infection, Kyle, the Survivors, it all hit like a brick.

And you survived bridge, the voice growled in my head. But nothing was really registering. There was too much pain, and everything was blurred. I felt myself placed on smooth ground, much better than the rocky mass I was laying in. "John, you better not be fucking dead! Say something!" I risked opening my eyes to see a blurry figure over me. After a while, it clarified into the bloody face of Kyle. "John?"

My body exploded with pain with each movement, but it was dulled by the obvious concussion I probably had. I struggled to get myself up, but before I could another hand pushed me back down gently. I turned to the side to see a large pool of blood around me, as well as Bill wrapping gauze around a massive gash on my shoulder. "I'm surprised you haven't bled out yet, kid," he muttered, taping the end of the gauze down. "You were under all of the wreckage. Louis got the idea to find a forklift and lift all the heavy shit off of you."

I shrugged my shoulders, but immediately regretted it as they screamed in pain. I hissed, shifting forward as Bill pushed me back down. "Damnit, John, stop moving," I heard Kyle growl, but the pain was just too much-

When I came to, I was sitting on a tattered couch in what I assumed was the house by the now-destroyed bridge. I noticed immediately that my entire arm was bandaged up, with stitches across my chest. Slowly this time, I sat up on the couch avoiding to touch anything in pain (Which was almost everything) when I saw a lean figure sitting on a chair across from me. After assuming it was asleep or dead, I got up to get a better look at him.

He was a man, about my age, in a dirty white suit that looked at once expensive. He had a Deagle .44 in a gun holster on his belt, with an AKM in his lap. He had several bruises and cuts scattered around his head and arms. His five o'clock shadow and dark eyes made him seem older, and his bandaged right hand was sloppy, and looked like he wrapped it himself. But his face... I knew it somewhere.

But I jumped back immediately when he opened his eyes, looking at me sternly, light blue eyes to dark brown ones. "It's about time your sorry ass was up," he spat out, and the memories flooded back. "What the hell are you doing here, Nick," I gasped, my chest complaining as stitches threatened to come out. He chuckled, standing up and giving me a soft hug. "I knew this shit wouldn't bring you down, cousin."

It was all still too good to be true. I was sure I was dead. Yeah, there's no way in hell Nick not only survived a zombie apocalypse but found me in some random town I've been in for weeks. Of course, until I heard noises of others outside. "Goddamnit, why'd we have ta leave Jimmy Gibbs Jr.'s car behind?" someone whined. I immediately knew he was from Savanna. People just... talked a certain way there.

"Who the hell is that?" I asked Nick, noticing his face flash in fresh annoyance. "Just some hick I got stuck with- ELLIS STOP CRYING OVER THE DAMN CAR!" he yelled out the window as the whining continued. I could tell whoever that was loved Jimmy Gibbs Jr. We both acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary, and as if we didn't just reunite after years, because Nick taught me and Travis not to worry over shit for too long. I kept that motto when he was around, like now. But that brought up another question.

"Wait, where's Travis?" I asked Nick, and he shrugged. "Last thing the bastard sent me was a postcard of some place in New Mexico, hell if I know." I was a bit disappointed, but it was too high of hopes to have both of them back.

Another thing I found odd was there was no gunfire. No Hunters screaming, no Commons flooding the street. Nothing. Just silence and the footsteps of the others outside. With Nick's help, I stumbled outside to find Kyle and the Survivors with three other people I assumed was with Nick. One was the southerner, Ellis, with overalls tied at his waist, a yellow-ish T-shirt, and a blue cap, and was sitting atop the pile of rubble, Zoey patting his back both amused and sympathetic. Odds are his car was on the other side, and probably loved it. Down at the bottom of the pile, conversing with Louis, was a large, dark man in a purple shirt of some high school he probably used to work at. Helping load gas into two vans with Francis was a dark woman with a pink shirt of some band and an M16 on her back.

"Hey, where's Kyle?" I asked, suddenly concerned where he went. Nick gave me a blank stare, obviously confused, then shrugged as Francis called him over to help. "Yeah, I'm coming, calm your shit," he said. Looking around, I searched for the missing Smoker, going to all the places he liked to hang around. The tunnels, our makeshift weapon shed, the apartment we stayed in, and yet he was nowhere to be found. By now my shoulder was killing me, and I couldn't find that damn bastard anywhere.

That was until I heard the Midnight Riders blasting out of a speaker. Kyle loves the Midnight Riders. I love the Midnight Riders.

But zombies hate the Midnight Riders.

"FUCK!" I heard the Smoker yell as a horde began closing in. I rushed in as fast as my wounds would let me to find Kyle at a park on top of a tent as zombies flooded below him, pissed off at the sudden noise. "What the hell did you do?!" I yelled at him, relying on my left hand to swing at Commons with a pipe. "I didn't do anything, I just hit it by accident!" he yelled, shooting at anything that got up where he was. I looked around and noticed a lot of old dead bodies, one of them being a large zombie with one massive arm, like half a Tank.

The Commons were either killed or lost interest quickly, and we were left with a pool of rotting bodies and blood. "Nice to see you awake," Kyle panted, leaning on a tree. "Shut up," I wheezed, "asshole."

He chuckled, patting my back as carefully as possible before helping me back to the house. The street was littered with spent shells, bodies, used bandages, even an empty box of incendiary rounds. This is probably the route Nick took to us.

We kept our promise to the Survivors, and the two vans jumped to life in no time. There was only space for four people and supplies in each, which worked perfectly for them. I didn't want to leave Nick a second time, but we both knew an Infected was an Infected to the government, sane or not. They'd probably use me and Kyle for experiments, and no doubt would kill us. So, we stayed behind. With no more bridge for easy passing, we'd probably have to help anyone that came through even more.

I was kind of hoping they wouldn't be the last people to come along.