by Jason Durman
"Anything else?" Russ calls, looking around. I hold on to the shovel. Eve puts on her bag and nods.
Trevor grunts.
He has the thing- Betsy, that's what he named it- strapped to his back, which makes him smell even more like gas.
The room seems emptier now.
Russ looks one more time, and he nods.
"Right then. Get your shit packed. Let's roll."
Chapter 11
It's bright and cold out, and when we step outside I sneeze from the cold and the light. I want to pull up my hood because my eyes hurt, but I remember what Trevor told me yesterday and I keep it down.
Everyone has their guns up, looking around quickly and listening, but I don't hear or smell anything coming.
"We're hitting southeast from here," Russ says, more quiet than he is inside. He's holding his hurt arm carefully. Eve took it out of the sling but it's still wrapped up, and I can still smell the pain on him when he uses it.
"I want to get out this godforsaken city before anything else. There should be a safe house ahead, about 10 miles from here. It's not too far, but we can't count on the roads, and keep an eye out for any… issues."
"Right," Eve says. Trevor and I nod; I forget how much 10 miles is, but I can walk far.
The other two start to walk ahead, but Russ stops me with his hand before I can go.
"Wait."
Then, with his arm that isn't hurt, he shoves me- hard - against the wall, and he smells like the hunt, like he's going for the kill, and his eyes are dark and shiny and looking at me.
His gun is next to my head. I think like I've felt this before.
I stay still, and I can feel the thd thd thd thd in my chest,
"Put on all the act you want you want, pipsqueak," he growls, and I have to make myself not growl back.
"The other two might have fell for your little sob story, but I sure as hell didn't. And if I had it my way, you'd be dead. But with the way that the dice are rolling, you're apparently more use to use to us alive, so you stay. For now." He presses the gun a little harder to my head, so much that it hurts.
"I know you're hiding something, and I know you aren't gonna squeal about it. Right?"
I can't do anything but gulp, and stare into those scary eyes. He squints.
"Here's the deal: you stay where I can see you. Got it?"
I nod, carefully.
"And if you even try to pull any shit on us, or you don't pull your weight, or if I see any funny business, I will find some way to separate your head from your body in the quickest and most painful way I can think of, because I'd hate to waste any ammo on a little fucker like you. Understand?"
Nodnodnodnod. My chest thumps so loud that it hurts.
Thddathdaathdathdda….
"Good."
He lets go of me, and pulls the gun away from my head. I lean against the wall, all shaky,my chest still thudding. Russ snorts. "Catch up with the others. And you're ahead of me. No trailing behind"
I nod, again, and run over to Eve and Trevor around the corner. I don't think they heard anything, but I still keep away from them and Russ a little more now.
I think today is going to be a long day.
I walk next to Trevor.
Russ is in the back, watching, while I hold on tight to the shovel. I don't know what to do with it if something happens, but I know I can't claw or bite.
The cold stings my nose and my face, but I don't say anything. No one says anything, and we just walk on the frozen hard stuff ice. Looking, listening. Listening so hard that my ears almost hurt.
Everyone smells nervous.
We walk. We walk and walk and walk, sometimes we stop if we see something move far away or if there's a sound, but it's a bird or some snow falling off a roof, or Russ pointing where to go.
There's lots of dead on the ground. Sometimes it's just one or some, but other times it's a big pile with brown on the snow around them, I can't smell them now, but I remember, on the warm days when it was just me, there was stink everywhere. Even in the closets, when it smelled like chemicals and dust, I could still smell them. Everywhere.
I'm glad it's cold today.
We walk some more. Eve and Trevor step over the bodies, but sometimes there's too many and nowhere to walk and I'll step on an arm, and it'll go crrrnch.
I wish I could be on the roofs, right now.
After we walk for a long time there's less buildings, and more trees and houses and less bodies.
There's less nervous smell, and I let go of the shovel a tiny little bit. I was holding it really tight.
It's quiet.
Then I hear something.
It's a little noise, and it's far away, but it doesn't sound like wind or snow or birds. It's scraping, heavy on the ice, and it stops sometimes, with a little growl.
Not a rival growl, but I've heard it before.
An infected growl. The stupid kind.
I smell it, too. The wind is coming at me and there's sick, pain, dying, angry in it.
I can't see it, but it's getting close.
I stop.
The others keep walking, but they stop too when they see me.
"Something wrong?" Eve asks, very quiet.
Trevor hmphs. "We can take a break later, kid." he says.
Russ doesn't say anything. He just watches me.
No funny business...
"Uh. Guys." I say. "There's something. Up ahead. I think."
My voice hurts, maybe because I haven't said anything in a long time, or maybe because it's cold.
Eve shakes her head. "Denver, I don't see or hear anything. We should keep mo-"
" Listen. Please. I really think something is coming."
They all stop, and try to hear. I wait.
The shuffling is getting closer, but I don't think they hear it.
I wait more. After awhile, Trevor sights.
"Kid, I think you might've mishe-"
Then there's a growl.
The infected comes around the corner. It's gray and thin, and the stench of sick and rot and dead is everywhere.
Its face has many spots of black on it, like a dead black. There's a hole kind of thing where the nose is, and some of its fingers are gone- just stumps of black.
Marcy told me about this. It's frostbite, when it's so cold that you freeze and the flesh is dead and falls off. It's been outside for a long time, I think.
Then it sees us, and it runs.
I can't remember thinking, or being scared or anything. Just the smell, and the eyes and the hands and everything else that's black and dead.
Then Russ holds up the gun and shoots.
It's three times, bangbangbang in the chest, all red and black before it falls down dead. I have to make myself stand and not hold my hands over my ears, which are going eeeeeeeeee and hurt, alot, from the sound.
"Nice shot." says Eve. She sounds all echoey and far away even though she's right next to me.
"Least it was only one," says Trevor, but Russ shakes his head.
"There's gonna be more coming this way. We'd better move."
Then I hear a scream, and it's everywhere.
"Ah, sugar."
"Fuck in a can!"
" ¡Me cago en ná!
"Uh…"
They come, running, screaming aoooooooooo and climbing over walls, falling from roofs, out windows and doors and hidden places. Some of them slip on the ice and the others run over it but they get back up again, still screaming and growling and coming at us.
Trevor hits the first one. It's pale and doesn't have as many black parts but I can still smell the dead on it, and goes straight at him until he hits it, bang in the head and it falls.
The rest run right after, and Eve and Russ shoot. The sounds of the guns make my chest thud and my head rings, and I almost miss the one running right at me.
I swing the shovel.
It hits it right in the head, and it explodes, pink and grey spraying everywhere and landing on me,
and now all I can smell is blood.
"Nice thwack, kid," says Trevor, and he shoves an infected towards me. "Reloading!" he calls out.
I hit that one with the shovel too, and even though it doesn't explode it hit the ground with a crnch.
They keep coming, and I don't even stop to think anymore. All I can hear are the screams and the shots, or the others yelling out 'Reloading!"
And when my shovel hits something.
Everything becomes a thing I do. Swing, hit, kick, smell of blood, punch….
It's all red, and the guns rattle, bangabangbangabang like my chest, like my head.
Then it's over. The last one Russ shoots and it falls, on a pile all around us with the rest, and the silence after is so loud my ears ring.
Eve wipes her forehead. "Damn, I thought we weren't going to make it through that one. They all came out of nowhere!" She turns to me and smiles.
"Nice fighting there, kid . "
"Thanks." I say. My head is hurting, and I can't think past the buzzing in my ears and the smell of blood.
Trevor hits me on the back. "I knew you'd make a good addition!" he says. "You're a real credit to the team! Right, Russ?"
Russ is watching me closely. He narrows his eyes.
"How were you able to hear that first one?"
"Eh?" I say. The first one?
"You know. The first infected. The one none of us was able see, or hear."
Lie, I think, but I can't think of a good reason.
"Uh. It heard it screaming. Uh. Far away."
Russ doesn't believe me. I can smell it on him, but before he does anything Eve steps in front.
"We can discuss this at the safe house," she says, and Trevor nods with her. "Let's keep moving so this-" she points to the bodies- "Doesn't happen again."
Russ grunts, but he doesn't look like he's going to argue. "Right."
He still sounds mad.
Eve and Trevor start walking, and I run to catch up with them. I know Russ is behind me, but I don't look back to see.
I hope the rest of the day is quiet.
Russell watched as the other two of the team walked ahead, the newcomer trailing behind them in earnest.
He said nothing, simply observing as his breath hung in the cold air.
He contemplated, in silence, how scrawny the kid looked; certainly not enough to put up a good fight, at first glance.
Hell, give him a Beretta, he thought to himself, and the kickback alone would probably knock the punk over.
He looked down at the bodies, splayed in various awkward positions, riddled with bulletholes and frostbite marks. Nowadays, they looked more like the zombies in the movies than actual living things. Not that they were really living when we shot them, he reflected.
One body was different. It had fallen back, spreadeagled, as though knocked down by some massive force.
He crouched down to inspect the damage. The face was caved in, enough to make a sizeable dent, though the hole wasn't in the flat shape of a shovel. It was more rounded. Deeper.
Like a fist.
A single punch that killed it.
Russ said nothing. He only took in the scene around him. Thinking.
Always thinking. And watching.
Then he rose, turned, and followed the others.
Chapter 12
The group was silent was they made their way across the roads, past houses collapsed under snow and streets left unplowed, the ice building up under the onslaught of drifts and left slick by the weak sun.
Even when they stopped in an old gas station for a break and MRE's (which made the kid stare at the wall, for some reason) they said nothing. They were quiet, save an occasional grunt or muttered command, as they picked their way over a highway filled with cars going to nowhere, their occupants strapped and frozen to the sears, or the windows stained and encrusted with old blood.
They were quiet as the city turned into suburbs, and as the cars became less and less frequent on the roads.
And they were especially quiet as they heard a weeping wail in a rainwater ditch beside the parkway, the inhuman cries echoing down the way and carrying on the wind long after they passed the source.
When they eventually reached the safehouse, however, everyone stumbling into a small office room located in god-knew-where, Ohio, it was Trevor that broke the silence.
"Lord in Heaven, finally."
A collective sigh of relief of breathed (Even by Russ) and the setup of camp commenced.
Trevor hauled Betsy off his back and fiddled with it, filling the room with the smell of gas (which made Denver sputter) and, after awhile, a tentative kind of heat. Eve retrieved various medical supplies from her pack, and Russ rolled out his maps.
Denver was tasked with scrounging for food, and an expedition through the cupboards revealed were some candles, rock hard and sooty, and a couple of dented, frozen cans of beans.
"A deadly combination," joked Eve when she saw the pile, but the comment seemed to fly over the kid's head, and she called it a loss, going back to her task of unpacking.
Though everyone had kept their guns slung to their backs, Denver's shovel lay, forlorn looking, on the table, the blade crusted with blood and god-knew-what. She cringed, inwardly, at the unsanitary practice of leaving it on top of an eating table, and made a mental note to chew him out, and not use that particular spot for preparing food. Yuck.
As she grabbed the spade, and noted, for all the action it had gone through, it didn't look too worse for wear. A few dents here and there, but it was otherwise intact, right down to the finger-ridges on the handle-Wait. Had they always been there?
The handle, sure enough, seemed to be molded to a hand, but she could have sworn that the metal had been smooth and straight befo-
"Hey, Eve, can you look at this?"
Trevor interrupted her thoughts, and she turned away from the table. Russ has taken the sling off, and was moving his wrist around experimentally.
"It feels OK, but I think it might be a little swollen," he said, gruffly, though not unkindly.
Eve sighed. No hay paz para los pecadores. She put down the shovel and turned her mind to other topics; there were more important things to think about, after all.
Trevor and Denver had watch again for the night, first shift. Betsy managed to make the space bearable, if a little gasoline-fumey, the quiet hum filling the room. The night was silent, and Trevor figured there would be little issue from the zombies.
Feeling a need, he pulled a certain metal flask deep from within the recesses of his coat, unscrewing the cap as he glanced, furtively, at the sleeping forms of Eve and Russ, and then back at the kid, who was watching with quiet disinterest, shovel in hand.
"You mind?" he asked, shaking the flask.
The kid sniffed- he'd been doing that all day, perhaps he had a cold- and shrugged, turning to the window.
Trevor took this as a confirmation, and swigged the bottle.
"Thanks." He said, capping the container and stowing it away once again with care.
"Heh. I swore off this stuff when I came clean four years ago, but Lord knows I need some after today."
Denver didn't reply. Though his face was pointed towards the window, his gaze seemed unfocused.
Trevor turned to face him.
"You're not much of a talker, are ya?"
Denver once again shrugged. "Yeah."
"So you like talking?"
He stiffened. "Uh, I mean, what I was saying was-"
"You don't?"
"Y- I mean, I don't like talking. Sorry."
"It's alright."
"...thanks." Despite his sallow skin, there was a faint redness to his face now.
There was a stretch of silence. Then:
"Got something on your mind?"
Denver seemed to hesitate before answering. "I guess."
"The person you're looking for?"
There was no reply. Trevor gave him a knowing look.
"What's she like
?"
There was a soft sound of surprise, and Denver turned to Trevor, eyes wide.
"How do you know?"
Trevor chuckled again. "There's signs, if you know what to look for. Miss her?"
He nodded.
"It's been… awhile since I've seen her."
"How'd you get split up?"
He appeared to hesitate, staring at the window again with a look of conflict on his face.
"CEDA." He said, simply. "I don't know where she is right now, but Whitaker-"
"You're still going to try and find him?"
"Yeah."
"You know what we told you about him. They don't call him 'Crazy Whitaker' for nothing."
"I'm still gonna look for him."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"You're nuts." He shook his head in disbelief, and then thought for a moment.
"You must really care about this girl."
The kid exhaled in a gentle, and stared into the distance.
"I do."
"Why?"
Denver, glanced down at his hands, which had remained gloved since Trevor had first seen him, oddly enough.
"I think she would have done the same for me."
"You think so?"
There was a pause, and a look of conflict once again clouded his face.
"When we first met…" he started, seeming to pick his words carefully, "She… helped me out. When she could have let me die. But she saved me. My life. When she didn't have to. So I think it's my turn now. And…"
He paused. "She's all I have. My only family, kinda."
"So you're gonna find her?"
"I have to."
Trevor scoffed, softly. "There's never such a thing as have to, kid. I know she might be all you've got or what have you, but it's a snipe hunt you've got going there. And while I don't think I can pull you away from it, please at least consider hard darn impossible it is."
Denver gripped the shovel, hard, so much that the metal creaked. "I know she's out there. And I know that she's alive, and that if I find Whitaker, then he can help me."
"And if you can't find him? Or he doesn't help you? Or he turns you into a red splat on the ground with a rocket launcher because you're thinking of negotiating with a lunatic?"
He shrugged. "I'm gonna try. It's all I can do."
Trevor raised an eyebrow. "Your funeral." After a moment, he added,