The third body fell to the ground in an undignified manner with blood splattering on her dark jeans. She put the gun back in its holster hoping she would not have to take it out too soon. She was running low on ammunition and wanted to preserve what was left of it. That is the reason why Momo was currently in this residential neighborhood. She entered every house for the slight chance of finding bullets. Having cleared the first floor of the house she was in, she headed straight for the kitchen, opened the drawers and pantries and shoved whatever edible thing she could find in her backpack. In her book, it was better to have more food even if that meant her bag would be harder to carry. It might be more difficult to run, but at least she would not die of starvation. Steps resonated upstairs and Momo stopped her motions with her hand outstretched for canned peaches. She heard the steps again. Thinking fast, she put the can in her bag and quietly left the house.

Momo walked for a few minutes before sitting down on the sidewalk and taking off her backpack to place it between her legs. It was an especially humid day and her hair was sticking at the back of her neck. Using her shirt to wipe the excess sweat off her face, she took the water bottle out of her bag and took a small swig out of it. She looked at her surroundings while appreciating the silence. All those houses belonged to normal families not more than a few weeks ago. Two months to be exact. Two months ago, children were probably playing tag on those lawns, which were perfectly mowed. Their parents watching them on the porch, maybe with a dog wagging its tail near them, but that was two months ago. Gone were the normal families. Momo doesn’t know exactly how everything happened. It just did. She woke up one morning and everyone on the news was freaking out about a virus from a certain experimental laboratory.

She scoffed thinking about it all. In the first three weeks, the government sent the army to neighborhoods like this one to protect them, but most of them died eventually. They died but got back up, as an entirely different being, to kill more people. Those things were horrific. Some called them zombies while others went for the undead As for Momo, she preferred the term walkers thanks to popular culture.

Thinking she rested enough, Momo got up, brushed the dirt off her pants and continued her way to the next house. Once she entered and closed the door behind her, she whistled a few notes to see if any walkers would appear. Silence answered her and she proceeded to the kitchen. When Momo found empty pantries, she looked for anything else that could be helpful to her. She took the television remote’s batteries and placed them in a small pocket of her bag. Trying to ignore the picture frames hanging on the wall, she moved to the bathroom, where she took aspirin, bandages, sanitary towels and tampons.

The sun began to set as Momo made her way up the stairs. She opened the first door with her foot and decided that was where she was going to spend the night after focusing her eyes on the king size bed. She was lying on her back and her eyes started to close when she heard a small sound. Listening more attentively, it came from the room across hers. She slowly got up, took her handgun out of its holster and walked as quietly as she could to the other room. She put her ear on the door and realised the sound she could hear was light snoring. Curious, she kicked the door open and it went slamming on the wall. In the left corner of the room, a girl who was fast asleep woke up screaming and covered herself with her sheets.

A few seconds passed when Momo kept staring at the girl with her gun raised towards her. She had blonde hair that looked like a bird’s nest, eyes wide open like a deer in headlights and trembling hands gripped her covers so tight her knuckles turned white.

“Please don’t shoot me’’ she begged in a small, sleepy voice.

Momo was a bit surprised. This was her first human interaction in days, but did not lower her gun nonetheless.

“I...T-This is my house’’ she continued, raising her hands in a surrendering manner. “This is my room. Please don’t kill me, I-I don’t want to die’’.

Momo didn’t answer and moved closer to the bed.

“This is my childhood home, please, I can’t die in it. I’m not going to hurt you, an-and you can stay here if you want, as long as you want. J-just, don’t kill me’’.

Momo stayed silent for a while. When she f