TWO ALIVE
Jeremiah W. Jonez
Chapter 1
Staring through the scope of an old Dragunov sniper rifle with a deadly accuracy, Miles tracked a deer bounding through the woods. He treated that weapon like it was his favorite toy even though it was the real deal. He already knew a lot about it from using it in video games like Call of Duty, so when he found it a few years back and the old man said he could keep it, he was juiced. Since that first day to now, Miles had become a crack shot and was more than able to pick off a deer no more than a hundred meters out. He was only thirteen years old but the old man taught him how to use the rifle proficiently. He took his time. He watched the doe come to a slow trot once it stopped sprinting. He took a deep breath and held it as he prepared to fire.
Then four loud bangs came from his right side. He looked up at Antonio, standing there with a stupid grin on his face. He caught the animal with his third and fourth shot but it was so sloppily done.
“Got it!” Antonio laughed and took off down the hill to get his kill.
Miles sighed and stood up from the patch of dead leaves he was kneeling on. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and looked around the woods mindfully. It was still quiet and serene with trees as tall as skyscrapers all around them. Leaves were falling and the ground was carpeted with red, orange and brown foliage. Miles met his brother when he got to the deer and Antonio was dancing over the dying animal with his hunting knife in hand. He dropped down to one knee and put it out of its misery.
The two boys were wearing shirts tucked in their fatigued jeans and their jeans were tucked into their boots. On top of all that, they had on bulletproof vests and police riot gear. Both Miles and Antonio were clad in what looked like armor when they went hunting or left the hideaway. Miles wore a bandana around his head that covered his ears and kept his earbuds in and Antonio wore a dark beanie. The two looked like special ops army recruits out on a mission. Antonio was older than Miles by five or six years but Miles sometimes couldn’t remember. But Antonio had no problem reminding him he was nineteen and no one could tell him he wasn’t a grown ass man with his small patch of peach fuzz on his chin. Miles had a budding mustache but knew it wasn’t anything to brag about.
When Miles got down the hill he sighed and said, under his breath, “You wasted too many bullets.”
Antonio heard him and rolled his eyes with a deep sigh, “I got him didn’t I?”
“I coulda got him. I had him lined up. The old man always says get your shot and take your shot. Don’t waste bullets.”
“Man, I got him. That’s all that matter. He wouldn’t be trippin’. All that matter is we eatin’ tonight! Ha haah! Yeah baby! Yeah! Yeah!” Antonio was shouting and hooting. It made Miles uneasy.
“Stop being so loud.” Miles looked around again and it was still quiet. Then he looked back down at the deer and noticed something on its hind leg. “It got an infection on it.”
Antonio looked at it, “That’s on the leg though. See I’ma just cut that off.”
“You can’t cut that off. It probably spread.”
“It ain’t spread. I’ma cut the leg off and its still gon be good.”
“No it ain’t. The old man wouldn’t eat that. He would tell us not to risk it. Its no good.”
“Yeah it is! Look, it ain’t even that much on the leg. It’s coo. Stop bitchin’ and whinin’ and shit! Damn, you just mad cuz I got it and you didn’t.”
Miles sucked his teeth, “I ain’t whinin’. The old man wouldn’t eat it. I ain’t eatin it.”
“Oh my gooodddd! Fine, then I’ma eat it by myself then!”
A screaming moan came out from behind the trees and Miles spun around with his rifle raised. Antonio held his knife up at the ready and looked around. A straggler came stumbling alone through the trees.
“Look, you being hella loud! I told you.” Miles complained and put the gun back over his shoulder when he felt the threat wasn’t that serious.
“Man, shut up. You got him, or you want me to do it?” Antonio chopped at the deer’s back foot and began hacking the thing off.
“I got him.” Miles was already heading towards the dark looking man who looked lost and disoriented. He pulled a knife from his side and followed the stranger.
The man thrashed about and whipped his head from side to side. He moaned and barked with no real awareness of his surroundings. Probably because his face was so beat in that his eyes were swollen shut. He was wearing decent clothes, so he might have been from a group nearby. Miles also recognized the beginning stages of the LRS-10 virus that was turning this man, like so many others before him, into a raving lunatic out for blood. Miles whistled to get the man to turn after him and when the creature snapped around to the sound, Miles ducked behind a tree to whistle again.
The man stumbled towards the tree with a blind hunger, extending his arms to grab whatever was in front of him. Miles snuck around the tree to his backside and swiftly plunged his knife into the man’s head. He broke through the skull with one shot and the infected man went down easy. Miles then went through his pockets looking for anything useful. Weapons, food, a map, anything that could be worth a damn was what the old man would say when checking a body. When surviving the apocalypse, some things that once seemed unimportant, like a belt, a pair of shoes or a swiss army knife were enough to kill for. Water and food, that wasn’t even a question. Take it if you can and let God worry about the ones who lost it. Something else the old man always said.
“He got anything? A knife or some shit?” Antonio called from the deer.
“No. He don’t got nothing.” Miles checked his shoes but they were too big for him and too small for Antonio.
“Well what he got? Take his shirt at least or somethin’!”
Miles shushed him and looked at the man’s clothes more closely, “It’s all bloody. It’s not worth it.” He turned the body over.
He looked at the man’s face all bashed and bloodied. Someone did all this to him before he started to turn. The bite mark near his neck was still “mildly” fresh but the bruises were almost a day old. Someone really put a hurting on this guy.
“Aye, come help me with this deer.” Antonio shouted.
“What? I ain’t even gon eat it. You carry it!” Miles shouted back.
“Man, hurry the fuck up and get over here and help me! Damn!”
Miles begrudgingly went over to help his older brother. He didn’t want to help but he also didn’t want to argue. He pulled his phone with the cracked screen from his pocket and Eddie Money’s Take Me Home Tonight started playing in his head. The cord to his earbuds was tucked under his turtleneck shirt.
“Grab the head and I’ll hold the ass.” Antonio laughed.
Miles helped lift the dead animal, not responding while he did, just humming the song in his head.
Antonio went on, “You think any other freaks out there? That one came out of nowhere.”
Miles kept humming as the two headed in the opposite direction of the man he had taken out a second ago.
“What the fuck happened to him anyway? He got bit? Did he turn?” Antonio asked, but Miles still didn’t reply. “Man I know you can hear me!”
The two continued in silence, the only sound between them was the crunching leaves under their feet. The hideaway was five miles out but their bikes were hidden at the edge of the woods. Once Miles helped get the deer there, he’d let Antonio deal with getting the dead animal home. This hadn’t been much of a supply run, they gathered some apples and potatoes from their hidden garden, but a lot of the fruits and vegetables weren’t growing. The deer would have been meat for at least a week and a half if Antonio didn’t get greedy but Miles wasn’t sure about eating the possibly tainted venison. Apples and potatoes
weren’t going to hold him over for long and the bigger issue was that they weren’t able to maintain the garden. The old man would be pissed.
There was supposed to be carrots, lettuce, and tomatoes but all of that was going to shit. It might have been due to overwatering, which is what Miles believed the problem was. Antonio, as usual, was blind to the idea that anything he did had negative results. There was no way the garden’s issues were his fault. He made all the best calls. He was always right. He was the self-proclaimed leader after the old man. Miles still wasn’t so sure about how he felt about that.
“Yo!” Antonio dropped the deer, talking loudly but trying to whisper.
Miles spun around and pulled an earbud out, then quickly went to kneel down when he saw Antonio was low.
“You hear that?” Antonio was whispering now.
Miles took his phone out and turned his music off to really listen. The wind was rustling leaves and branches overhead creaked, but another noise was less natural than the woods. Voices. Close too. The words, never be found came to mind and was another rule the old man made. Infected people were dangerous but normal, abled bodied people were even more dangerous. That’s why the old man took the boys out here to these woods where they lived and where they hid. Sure small groups would pop up from time to time—and they kept track of each one of them—but the old man and the boys had been able to stay hidden for two years after the infection spread.
“Who’s that?” Antonio stayed low and moved behind a tree.
“I think it might be a new group.” Miles slid behind another tree.
Antonio pulled his gold pistol from the holster on his side and took the safety off. Miles was berating him about bringing the flashy weapon and was trying to convince him to put it away. He tried reminding him how much noise a gun made and how it would just make things worse if lurkers came wondering out. But Antonio wasn’t hearing it. He was itching to use the solid gold Beretta they found two weeks ago just sitting against a big rock. It wasn’t too far from a man who was probably killed with it, but whoever had used it just abandoned it. What a waste. But the brothers found it and Antonio claimed it at first sight. Miles didn’t care. He didn’t want the flashy, shiny, golden weapon that made you look so cool holding it.
“Put that away.” Miles said.
“No fucking way.” Antonio checked the clip then reloaded the gun. Always check your ammo, the old man would say. The brothers got so good at it they were able to count shots on the fly.
“They sound like they arguin’.” Miles whispered.
“Yeah. So we should just go over there, see who it is and see what they arguin’ about. And this, this is just in case shit get crazy.” Antonio raised his weapon and admired it in the fading sunlight still peering through the trees.
Miles sighed and they both began to creep through the woods, staying low and sticking close to trees as they made their way to the voices. When the talking started to get louder and turned into shouting, Miles and Antonio came on a small circle of people with three men standing at the front of it with assault rifles pointed at the others.
“Franklin you don’t have to do this!” A man was standing between the guns and what looked like maybe his son and a woman.
“Screw that! Fuck this bitch! It’s her fault my brother’s dead!” Franklin was leading the other two men with rifles; he was hysterical as he waved his gun back and forth.
“You can’t blame Nicole for what happened back there! Those things were everywhere! We’re lucky we made it out alive. Those monsters ambushed us!”
The woman, Nicole, had tears streaming down her face but she wasn’t backing down. “I kicked his ass because he thought he could put his hands on me! But that had nothing to do with what happened to him!”
“You fucking bitch!” Franklin raised his weapon on her, but the pacifist stepped between them again. “Move Danny!” Franklin yelled.
“Everyone just calm down!” The pacifist, Danny, continued, “We have to get back to the store! We can’t stay out here any longer and we can’t fight each other!”
“We’re lost out here! We’re lost and those things are following us!” One of the men with a rifle was looking around, panicked. “We shouldn’t have come out looking for those people!”
“It’s her fault! If she didn’t sling her pussy all around my brother woulda never met this whore and he’d still be alive! He passed out after what she did to him and when those freaks attacked--”
“Screw you, you asshole!” Nicole spat back at him.
“Franklin, c’mon! Don’t do anything you’re going to regret! Please!” Danny was pleading and trying to get the men to lower their weapons.
“You think you’re some hot shit because that bastard Carver gave you a gun and you idiots get to play soldier!”
“Fuck you!” The last man with a rifle finally spoke. “I am a soldier.”
“Then where the hell were you when David tried to rape me!” Nicole fired at him.
The dark man just shook his head, “You two were fuckin’ so much, how the hell was I supposed to know it was going bad? All your fighting and yelling probably brought those things to us!”
The panicked man spun around when he thought he heard something in the trees. He was shaking like a leaf. “Oh shit! Did you hear that? They’re coming! They’re coming!”
“Shut the fuck up Gerald!” Franklin shouted, tightening the grip on his gun.
“Franklin, please!” Danny put his hand up, still trying to deescalate the situation.
Things were intensifying as Nicole shouted at the dark man and at Franklin while the men argued back. Everyone was so involved in the dispute. Except the young boy, who had seen Antonio leaning out from behind a tree.
“Hey, who’s that?” The teen spoke and in that brief moment, shots rang out.
Franklin had pulled the trigger on his gun and shot Danny through the stomach.
“No!” The boy shouted.
Whether it was an accident or on purpose, Nicole wasn’t going to wait and find out. She pulled free her handgun and shot Franklin in the leg. Franklin dropped down to one knee and she shot him in the face. The dark man looked at her and she looked at him. He raised his gun and she raised hers. They both fired, both hit their targets and both fell to the ground. Three lurking infected came running through the trees towards the people; no doubt drawn over by the shouting and the gun fire. They jumped on the frozen Gerald and he tried fighting them off, shoving them with his rifle.
Danny was on the ground, holding his stomach and turned to the boy. “Run! Run!” Blood was bubbling in his mouth.
The boy reluctantly took off running into the woods.
Miles and Antonio stayed out of sight through the whole ordeal and didn’t step out until it was only Gerald, fighting off the infected alone. The two brothers made their way over and Miles promptly went to checking the bodies of the dead while Antonio was putting down the half dead creatures who were looking to attack them. He put his gold gun away and used his knife to take out two of the monsters but left the last freak for Gerald to take care of. It only wanted him anyway.
“Help me!” Gerald pleaded and kept shoving away the growling creature.
Antonio laughed, “Bruh it’s only one of ‘em. You got a gun, you can’t kill it?”
Gerald tried firing his weapon, pulling the trigger repeatedly, but couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t shoot. Then the infected monster jumped Gerald and started tearing him apart with its bare hands. Gerald was useless with the assault rifle he was carrying. By the end of it, he was just a bloody mess of torn flesh and gargled screaming. The rotting creature pounded Gerald’s face in with big smashing fists and clawed at his chest with mindless killing intent. It wasn’t until Gerald’s screaming stopped that the creature stopped.
Antonio just shook his head, moseyed over to the creature as it stood up and drove his knife into its skull. “Pshh, hella weak.” He said, looking down at what was left of Gerald.
Miles stopped his gathering when he heard a loud cry of pain coming from the trees.
“Ooooh! Yeah! He stepped on one of them bear traps out there!” Antonio was nearly leaping for joy that someone actually got caught in one of the bear traps he and the old man set up. Those traps never caught anything and it was half because they were too well hidden.
“Hurry up and go check it.” Miles pointed his knife towards the screaming with an almost hop-to-it attitude.
Antonio rolled his eyes and went running in the direction that the boy from this group went. When Miles finished picking up the supplies from the ground and putting them into his backpack, he looked down at Franklin and the bullet through his head. Then he heard coughing nearby. He went to check, knife ready, but saw it was Danny still alive on the ground.
“Please… I… you have to help us. You hav--” He was spitting up blood while tears ran down his cheeks. “You can help… you can help us--"
Miles looked him up and down and saw the blood pooling under his back. “You… you got shot.”
“Please…“
“I think your bleeding out.” Miles was staring blankly. “I think… I think you gonna bleed out. You’re gonna die. But slowly. I can help you… make it quick.”
“Oh my god.” Danny was crying softly, sniffling and breathing quickly.
Miles was vacant.
“You have to help me please. You have to take me back… you have to take me back to our shelter. We were staying at a Costco not too far from here, please! We have a doctor there, he can help me! Please!” Danny started coughing up blood again.
Miles started blinking rapidly and rocking back and forth as he shook his head. “No. I can’t. It’s just me and my brother out here. It’s just me and him so we couldn’t do it. You… you’d slow us down. You already lost a lot of blood” He started to lower his head then snapped back up, “Plus, plus… plus we don’t go to big groups. We just take stuff from them if we can.”
Danny continued crying softly.
Miles looked back and forth from the man and the trees. “I’m sorry. Sorry. Everybody dies. Except us.”
Two Alive Page 1