My heart raced. It raced so much so, that it almost hurt.

I took a step forward. The scarf around my face was scratchy, and the edges of my goggles trapped sweat between the rubber and skin.

"Move!" yelled the man.

I was on a beam sticking out of a building, and the ground was very far below. The man behind me? He was using me to reach the end of the beam. I had nowhere else to go. So I inched forward.

I glanced down, and that familiar feeling arose, the feeling like I was going to fall. My eyes snapped back up. I took a breath and advanced another step. The beam was open to the sun, and with each step I took, specks of rust dropped from the beam. Everything was silent.

I didn't dare close my eyes, but I opened my fingers a little more. The sun was baking today, my throat could feel the heat in every breath.

I very carefully lowered my body and felt along the end of the beam. There it was, a small red box tied underneath.

My watch beeped at me, and I paused.

"Hey!" I yelled. Only my echo answered.

"There's a storm coming in!" I continued.

The man decided to respond to that. "Is the box there?"

"Yes, but it's tied too well, I would need more time."

I had about five minutes to carefully back up to safety. I also had five minutes to figure out how to ensure I'd live once I got there. That man was going to either kill me or keep me hostage until after the storm so he could make me walk back out here. Then he would probably kill me.

"Come back then, you'll have to get it later!"

So, he'll be killing me later. The odds are better for me on that one.

I slowly pivot to face my left. I look at my toes, they're hanging over the edge. I can see them moving underneath the fabric of my shoes. They work tirelessly to hold my balance.

I can feel the adrenaline pounding in my ears, but continue pivoting until I face the man waiting twenty feet away. I needed to be there in less than four minutes.

"Snohelmega" I whispered. It was something I heard a group of people say one time. I was a little girl then, and there were three groups of us in the valley. Now there is only one, I am lucky to be in that group. The other two groups died or ran away.

I stepped forward, paused, then stepped again.

I did this a few more times, and then sacrificed some time to slowly bring my watch to my face.

Two more minutes. Thrill consumed my body. I've noticed that the tick of time has a funny way of dancing between misery and peace.

"Move faster! It's coming!" the man urged.

He was right, I wasn't going to make it unless I moved faster. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dark cloud in the distance. I refused to look, I would allow myself to look when I got closer to safety. I moved forward again, and then again. My watch beeped.

One minute.

My nose burned as it began to suck in the hot air faster. I pushed myself to move quickly. I had about five feet left.

I recognized it immediately, the extra fabric on my clothes began flapping, and an invisible force started lightly pulling on me. My eyes widened and my whole body tensed as I braced for the force. And it hit me. The first preliminary gust of the storm. I felt my weight shift, and couldn't help but let out a yell as I lost my balance.

My last chance was to grab the bar. So I twisted as I fell, and wrapped my arms over the beam. I knew right then that I had hit my chin hard on the metal. My legs swung under the bar and up, I held on tighter as my momentum nearly swung me off. I opened my eyes and struggled to catch my breath.

I winced and started moving my head around to look for any other options. There was a platform underneath me, the last barrier between where I was and death. It was directly under the platform where the man was standing, and it would require the right angle of a jump to even have a chance at landing on it.

The man held his hands on his head.

Yeah. I thought, like you're the one who should be stressed out right now.

The sandstorm wasn't here yet, but the initial gusts were. The wind blew into me as I hung from the beam. My arms weren't going to hold me where I was for much longer, and I needed that strength to get closer to the platform below me. I started inching closer to it, ignoring how the metal corners of the beam dug into my arms.

I started swinging my body, I had to hope I would land on the lower platform.

And I let go.

I landed hard on the lower platform, and barely managed to scramble into the building before the sandstorm hit. Of course, the wind and sand blew through the frame of the building, but after blundering down a few flights, there was more shelter. I entered a side room and shook the sand from my clothes.

"Did you get it?" asked a voice.

A hand wrapped around my wrist and I was turned around. I sighed in relief, hugged my brother, and then held up my other hand. Gripped in my palm was a small red box.

"Murphy, we gotta go, there is another bounty hunter here, he was using me to get this." I held out the box.

"Did he hurt you?" he asked, taking his attention off of the box and onto me.

I filled him in as we pulled extra wraps off of our arms and legs to better cover our faces. "No, but I'm sure he was going to kill me. If anything, I did more harm to myself trying to survive." I laughed humorlessly.

Murphy listened silently as we gathered our few belongings from the room. Among those belongings were a hatchet and crossbow. We didn't have any more arrows, I used those on our way in.

"Nothing serious, I got my chin pretty good though. We need to move quickly, the sand is hurting my eyes." I continued. I meant the skin around my goggles, of course, seeing as sand whipping across your skin tends to hurt. Murphy finished folding up the crossbow and tucked it between his back and his backpack.

"Well, I don't think you'll really need your eyes, this sandstorm is getting thicker than a snicker." He responded.

"You don't even know what a snicker is."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever it is, it sounds like a weapon we could really use." He paused. "You say things that you heard from them too."

I peeked through the crack in the door, that other bounty hunter was still in the building somewhere. "Yea, but they're dead now. At least I know what the things I picked up from them mean." Mostly.

"I know what it means," he murmured under his breath. I scoffed under mine.

We finished packing our things into every space we could fit in our backpacks, and Murphy held out his hand. I sighed and gave him the hatchet.

"Not that, Talia. Your hand."

I took the hatchet back. "No."

He is four years older than me, and took on a lot of responsibilities to keep us safe. But I am not going to hold his hand. Last time I did that he made me trip up a set of stairs. Mind you, this was with a pack of zombies not ten feet behind us. Have you ever been so mad at your older brother that you screamed and cursed him while scrambling away from the undead? Is there a special kind of therapist for that?

I stepped through the door and led us down the flights of stairs. There were some floors that had holes in the walls, and the sand blasted through taking any pieces left of the wall with it.

We got to the bottom and then slipped into the elevator chute. The ladder took us lower a few more floors, and we entered the hallway at the very bottom. This was our humble abode until the storm passed, we've been here before several times.

I broke the silence after catching my breath, "Do you think that other guy will follow us down here?"

"Maybe, it's pretty common knowledge to head downwards in a storm," Murphy answered as I tried adjusting to the low lighting. I let my goggles hang down around my neck.

We moved further back into the area and set up an area to lay down and rest. I propped myself up against a small dune of sand and took out the small red box.

"Murph, how much do you think this is worth?" I asked, pulling my head scarf from my mouth. I felt pressure on my chin as I smiled, it was still in a considerable amount of pain, but I didn't care.

A delicate chain dangled from my finger as I pulled it higher, and there on the end was a small, heart-shaped locket. Murphy gasped.

"No way," he whispered.

Some sand floated down the shute with a small puff of hot wind.

I lowered the locket into my hand and brought it closer to my face. It was beautiful.

Murphy scrambled to sit in front of me and get closer to the locket. "I've only heard stories about these."

I was entranced. It was shiny still, like a mirror.

We spent a moment sitting and staring into the locket. I was briefly aware that I was breathing straight into Murphy's face. I shifted my breathing to my nose because...that's gross.

The locket was beautiful. I noticed a small clasp on the side and picked at it for a second. It opened and I could hear the hiss of air as it did so. Interesting, the locket was airtight. Inside, there was a small seed.

"Intriguing," Murphy commented to himself.

Now Murphy was breathing in my face. I promptly made him aware of that.

The seed was pale yellow and seemed dried out.

"I don't think it'll grow anything. It's probably really old." I said. I pulled my backpack off and rummaged around for a minute. I pulled out an old sardine can and rolled back the lid. Inside of it was dirt.

Murphy brought his water bottle forward and helped me gently press the seed into the dirt. He poured a few drops of water atop the seed and I replaced the lid of the can. We wrapped the can in some old rags and secured it into my bag.

We exchanged thoughts about the seed as we shook out our clothes and took stock of our supplies. The roar of the storm above quieted to a low, miserable drone. Eventually, I began to doze off and Murphy offered to take watch. I would switch him in an hour or two.

...

I opened one of my eyes squintedly. My joints creaked as I turned and looked for Murphy. He sat facing away from me, but he knew I was awake. I crawled over and sat next to him, bringing my blanket with me.

He waved away the offer for the blanket and cleared his throat, "It's almost nighttime, so either we move up a few levels or we close off that chute for the night."

He was right, the light shining from the upper floors of the chute had darkened considerably.

I agreed and went to stand when I noticed that he had been staring at the locket.

"It will be enough" I assured him softly. He handed the necklace to me.

"I hope so," he sighed.

I lifted the necklace and began thinking about how probable it was that the necklace would get us in.

The slightest movement in the reflection of the metal sent a shock through my body. I snapped my head around to see the bounty hunter from earlier crouched with weapons drawn at the elevator shute.

Murphy stood quickly and I rushed to hide the locket back in its box.

Both men remained still, and I rose behind Murphy.

The man held a pistol, and a machete hung from his belt. We were dead if that pistol was loaded. I glanced to the left. I had left the hatchet on the ground. We were completely at this man's mercy.

But what happened next confused me.

The bounty hunter drew his machete and carefully lowered both weapons to the ground. He lifted a finger to where his lips would be behind the headscarf. He wanted us to be silent.

I peeked at Murphy, I could see blood pumping through the vein in his neck. I touched his arm asking without words, Why had he done that?

Murphy turned his face to acknowledge me but kept his eyes on the other man. Murphy was equally confused, and his face told me he was wary of the situation. I turned back to the other guy. He hadn't moved an inch. The only sound was the building creaking. It sounded like the storm had passed through.

That was when we heard it, a scraping sound from the floors above. The three of us remained still.

The air was stale down here. There was only one other way out, and that was through a door. That door led to the underground tunnels. Underground tunnels almost certainly had one major problem.

Howlers.

A terrifying version of their own type. Howlers are a sub-species of the undead people. They stick to the cool, dark underground. In doing so, their body is preserved much better. You'd think that would make dealing with them a little easier, wouldn't ya? No guts falling to the floor in pursuit of their prey, no brains coming out of the nose. Throw on some theatre makeup and a wig, and they could almost look normal.

But, Howlers still have their vocal cords. I heard them one night while I was separated from Murphy. They had been following us for a few nights through a set of tunnels. They sounded just like Murphy. I could have sworn it was him. But when I heard the voice, the echoes were just a little too clear.

The shuffling noises from upstairs continued. Something was up there.

When I was in that tunnel and realized it wasn't Murphy...I ran for my life and prayed that I was fast enough to reach the sunlight. I nearly wasn't, they were fast. I didn't get to see a Howler, they didn't get close enough to the opening for a clear image. But my heart dropped into my stomach when I saw faint outlines of at least twenty of them. I didn't even know how many were so close to me.

Some were still whispering to me, some were stumbling back from the light. It was almost like their beckoning took hold of my mind. For some reason, I felt strongly compelled to return to the mouth of the tunnel.

I blinked. The bounty hunter picked his weapons back up and was very carefully advancing out from under the elevator chute. I don't blame him.

He backed up to the corner of the room opposite us.

Some sand gently fell down the elevator shute. It could be a random Walker (which is the general term for our less aggressive undead). If so, no biggie. Even a couple of them would be fine. I would much rather face a few Walkers than the tunnels.

Nothing happened for a few seconds.

A deep snort reverberated down the chute. I could feel the vibration in my head and in my chest.

Crap. That's a dragon.

"Murphy?" I squeaked out as quietly as I could.

"Dragon."

Obviously, genius.

Without thinking much of it, I took a step back. Sand crunched gently between my foot and the concrete. Murphy turned his head to look at me very pointedly. It was definitely a sassy mom face.

I gestured to say, What if it comes down here?

He held up a hand, Just stay put.

I didn't push it. We turned to look back ahead.

The bounty hunter was back at the mouth of the chute. He was peeking up. My breath hitched, he was going to kill us all. Some more sand drifted down from above. A low, rolling clicking noise followed. The sand that had been drifting down the chute vibrated through the air.

I could hear my heartbeat.

Suddenly, the bounty hunter jumped and scrambled back to the corner. A confused lump of limbs smacked into the ground at the bottom of the shute. It trembled as it stood up. I didn't even need a second to guess what it was.

Its skin was nearly translucent, but it had what looked like severe sunburns all across the body. Its face was hollowed. Its eyes were missing. It stood. One of its arms was grossly broken. Howler.

Murphy and I nearly tripped over each other stumbling back. I reached for the hatchet.

Why wasn't it in the tunnels?

The Howler began to open its mouth, but then stopped. The air shimmered and rippled around it. It was like someone pushed pause. I watched incredulously.

In the corner, the bounty hunter collapsed to the floor. What a wuss. It's a wonder how natural selection hasn't claimed him yet.

However, that seemed to snap the Howler back into action. It began to whisper with a dreadfully innocent voice. Some poor girl had gotten her voice stolen. No doubt she's dead now.

"Goose?"

"Goose?"

"Goo-"

A set of dark green jaws snapped shut over the Howler, and carefully retreated back up the shute with the horrible clicking sound following it.