“Umm... Okay. I am going to umm get going and help Grant check out this place.” I turn to walk away and Cade grabs my arm to stop me.
“I mean it Willow, if you need me yell and I will be right there.”
I nod and he lets go of my arm. I slowly make my way up the steps and to the front door. The door squeaks as I push it open. I hesitantly step in with a death grip on my very own Mr. Bat. I have my arms cocked back ready to swing at the slightest sound or movement.
The place looks like no one has lived here in years. I make my way down the short hallway until I come to the first room. It is big and mostly empty besides some small boxes and a patio chair in the middle of the floor. There is a huge floor to ceiling book shelf on the far left wall completely empty. On the wall right in front of me there is a fireplace that I would expect to be empty but see a few logs still smoldering in the pit.
Satisfied that the room is empty I turn and back out. I hear noise coming from the back of the house and reluctantly put one foot in front of the other to see what or who is making the noise. As I round the corner to peer the direction the noise is coming from, Grant pops out from behind it.
I jump back and he raises his gun ready to shoot.
“Oh my God Grant you scared me to death!” I whisper.
He lowers his gun and pants, “Dear Jesus Wil. What are you doing back here I was supposed to check the back of the house and you the front.”
“Sorry I heard a noise and wanted to see what it was. Everything clear back here so far?” I ask trying to look past him.
“Yeah there was a limp in the back but I took him out. What about you? Things clear up there?” He nods his head in the direction I came from.
“Yeah except in the living room I saw a few smoldering logs in the fireplace.”
His face lights up with hope. “Maybe she is here somewhere! MELODY! MELODY BABY?!” He screams out.
“SHHHHH!” I hiss. “You’re going to get all the flesh eaters in hearing distance stumbling over here and right onto us!”
“Shit, sorry,” he says.
“It’s okay. Look, you finish looking back here and I will head up stairs to see if she is maybe up there.”
He nods and I turn around and head up the stairs.
The steps creak as each foot lands down on them. I have my bat raised and ready to strike. I come to the top of the stairs. There is a room straight ahead. I ease my way closer and see it is a bathroom and is clear. I turn and head down the long dark hallway. The floor boards look old and ready to fall in at any missed step. I carefully place my feet on the stronger looking boards. The first door I come to is closed so I take the end of the bat and gently push it open. There is a single bed frame in the middle of the floor and what looks like a bundle of bloody blankets in the corner.
“Okay I am done in here,” I mumble to myself. As I go to back out of the door I see the bundle of blankets move. Then a hand falls out from under the blankets.
“Melody?” I whisper praying it is her and we can all go home now.
The blanket twitches again at the sound of my voice. I slowly inch closer. “Melody is that you? Are you hurt?”
I take the tip of the bat and flip the blanket back. That’s when I see it isn’t Melody but a girl, maybe eleven or twelve, hunched over scooping the guts out of what looks like what could have been her mom. She turns her blood soaked face in my direction and tardily stands up and reaches out for me.
Her moans fill the room and I am frozen in place. I should run, but my feet feel like they are glued to the floor. As I look at this poor little girl staggering toward me I can’t help but feel sorry for her. She has on a pink hello kitty shirt and her long brown hair is up in a high ponytail with a blood spattered pink bow. There is a dark blood stained spot on her left chest right over her heart. She was shot?
“Were you shot? Is that how you died?” I ask as she stumbles over the pile of blankets and her mom’s ripped open body.
Maybe she was shot after she turned? But how did she turn in the first place? I scan my eyes over the rest of her body and I don’t see any other marks that could indicate why she died.
She reaches out to me and grabs at my shirt sleeve and yanks on it. I raise the bat and gently push her away with the tip of it. I can’t kill a kid.
As I think about her short life and the way she is now I can’t help but tear up.
“I’m sorry baby girl. You stay here. I have to go find a friend,” I say as I keep nudging her away with my bat and stepping backwards to the door.
I feel a set of hands grab me from behind on my shoulders. “Cade what are you doing up here? You are supposed to be keeping watch outside. I got this. Go back down and see if Grant needs you.”
The hands grip me tighter and I can feel his nails digging in my skin, “Ouch Cade!” I turn my head around to see a blue, pale faced man looking back at me. His eyes are the unmistakably bloodshot red. He opens his mouth to take a bite out of my shoulder. I twist away from his tightening grip and face him with my bat above my head. As I am bringing it down I feel sharp nails scratch down my back and I quickly spin around remembering the little girl. I go to push her back again and she lunges forward knocking the bat out of my hand. It skids across the room. I try and turn to go get it when I feel the man’s arms wrap around me.
The little girl springs forward. I stick out my leg to stop her but she grabs on.
“HELP!” I scream as I try and push the guy’s mouth away from my neck and shaking my leg to keep the girls teeth from finding my flesh.
“OH MY GOD HELP ME! CADE! CADE!” I frantically scream as I feel the weight of the man pushing up against me. If I fall I am dead. Stay up Willow. Balance. I tell myself.
It seems like everything's in slow motion as I watch the little girl fall to the floor and the weight of the man behind me is soon gone. I turn around expecting to see Cade coming to my rescue, but instead Grant is there with his hands on his knees breathing fast. Cade’s heavy footsteps come banging up the stairs and I watch his eyes take in the scene before him.
When I look to the floor I can’t help but cover my mouth to hide the giggle that wants to escape. Grant looks to me and smiles shrugging his shoulders. The man on the floor has a fork in each side of his temples.
“Forks Grant? Forks?” I say finally letting the giggle come out.
Just then the girl grabs my leg and I look down just as her mouth starts to cover my leg. I quickly yank a fork out of the guy’s head and jam it down in her eye socket. She falls backwards limp.
“You really forked her up,” Grants laughs out.
“Shut up,” I say and chuckle.
He holds out his hand to help me up and I take it. He pulls me up in one quick motion.
Finally Cade speaks up, “Are you okay?” He pulls me away from Grant’s hold and over to him.
“I am fine Cade, thanks to Grant.” I smile over at Grant and push passed Cade and back down the stairs.
I hear Cade mumble something then quickly follow me back outside.
“Willow! Wait up!” He says as he jogs up to me.
“What?” I spat as I turn around to face him.
“What’s wrong? What did I do to make you so pissy with me?”
I roll my eyes, “Really Cade you have to ask?”
“Yeah I have to ask. I mean Grant raped you and you seem friendly with him. And I know I haven’t done anything that bad to you. All I have done is try and protect you and put that jackass in his place.”
“Exactly Cade! That’s just it! I am not some helpless rape victim! What happened to me happened years ago and the way the world is now that is the least of my worries right now!” I say as I turn and get in the back of the ATV. “It’s almost time to meet up with Liv we should go.” I say not looking at him.
Grant comes strolling out of the house with the two forks in his hands. I can’t stop the laugh as he swings them around making stabbing jabs into the air.
“I couldn’t leave t
hese babies behind. They come in handy,” he says as he hops in the front seat.
Cade rolls his eyes and starts the ATV up.
“You’re such a dork,” I laugh out to Grant.
He looks back and smiles at me. “This dork and his forks saved your life, so hush.”
I shake my head and watch as the house disappears from my view as we make it back out onto the road.
Chapter Ten
Liv
I grip my bat and nod to Becky silently asking her to cover me as we make our way down the small inclined road toward the screaming Melody. I can’t believe I am trusting Barbie with a gun to cover me.
I chuckle at the thought. Tony agreed to let Becky have the gun but wouldn’t stay back with the ATV in case we needed a quick getaway. He insisted on going down and watching my back too even though we know Becky is a better shot.
“Liv stay close to me,” Tony says as he walks along beside me.
“Tony I am not helpless. I have killed more flesh eaters than you, so maybe you should stay out of my way and help Becky. We both remember how scared she gets around these things.” I roll my eyes and march on ahead of him.
The first flesh eater goes down with one blow, but is quickly followed by another then another. My arms are getting tired and I wish I would have taken that gun by the time I reach Melody. She slings her arms over my neck.
“Thank You! Please get me out of here!” She begs.
“Let’s go, stay close.” I quickly knock a flesh eater in the side of the head sending him to his knees.
I hear the shots ring out as Tony and Becky quickly drop eater after eater. The ones that Becky doesn’t hit, Tony takes out with his club. The shots are dropping them but just as quickly as they fall more are coming out and filling the streets back up. I grab Melody’s hand and practically drag her through the closing gap of street in front of us.
“LOOK OUT TONY!” I yell as I see a flesh eater reach out to grab him.
Becky swings her gun around and puts a bullet right between his eyes dropping him before he gets a hand on Tony. He smiles over at her and she beams back at him. I think I am going to be sick.
I hear Melody scream and slam her body into the back of me causing me to stumble and fall on my face. She takes off running toward the ATV. I quickly get up and instantly realize I don’t have my bat any more.
I look over to Melody who is swinging it wildly in front of her to clear a path for her to run.
“Shit!” I jump around as I feel hands on my shoulder. I pull out of the flesh eaters grip and punch it as hard as I can in the face. It stumbles backwards but doesn’t fall. But that’s all I need, just a window to run by him. I see Tony running full speed toward me.
“Tony! I am out of bullets! What do I do?” I hear Becky scream.
“I’ve got to get to Liv! Liv needs me!” he yells back over his shoulder as he dashes for me.
I watch as Becky empties her clip of perfectly good bullets on the ground then runs straight into an eaters arms.
“TONY! HELP ME! TONY!” She screams. Tony glances over his shoulder and looks right at Becky.
“Oh Shit! Hang on!” He turns to run to her at the same time a big burly flesh eaters slams into me knocking me back on the ground and falls on top of me.
Tony turns and looks in my direction as I am trying to fight this monster of a man off of me. With me on my face and him laying on my back, my arms pinned under me, it is a real struggle. I am going to die! I panic and start screaming and flopping my body around trying to free at least one arm.
Tony stands in the middle of the street looking back and forth between me and Becky. She has her walker by the face and is desperately trying to keep him from biting her. He shakes his head and runs full force to me yanking the big man off of my back and beating him in the face with the handle of his club.
I am frozen to the pavement as I watch Becky. The look on her face goes from anger to fear as another flesh eater grabs her from behind and bites down on her shoulder.
“TONY!” she yells again but he doesn’t stop his attack on the flesh eater that had me.
“She is mine! You can’t hurt her!” He screams as he brings the club down on the mangled eater’s face.
He finally falls to the ground not moving or making any noise. Satisfied Tony stops and quickly snaps out of it. He reaches down and pulls me up into his arms.
“Are you okay baby? Please say you are okay?” he says as he pulls me back out of his arms to look me up and down.
“I..I,” I am interrupted by Becky’s screams. We both turn and look in her direction as a third eater latches on to her leg.
I flinch and try to get out of Tony’s grip to run to her. She may be a bitch and started it, but no one deserves to die like that.
“Tony we’ve got to save her!” I yell and try and fight my way out of his arms.
“She is gone Liv we can’t save her.” He pulls me closer to his chest.
The streets go fuzzy and the last thing I see is flesh eaters coming up behind Tony.
Chapter Eleven
Wil
The ride to Cade’s driveway seems to take forever. We radioed to Liv's group and Tony said something happened and he would see us soon and explain. To say that my heart is in my stomach would be an understatement. All the worst possible things that could be wrong flash through my head. If something happened to Liv I don’t know how I will make it through this damn apocalypse without her.
She has been my rock for so many years. When life became too much she is the one who would make it all make sense again. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see Cade’s driveway in the distance and I wipe my sweaty hands down my pant leg. As soon as Cade parks I jump out of our ATV and run towards Liv’s parked ATV.
Liv is sitting in the seat with blood running down the right side of her face, her eyes are closed and her breathing is slow. I feel the tears rise to the surface as I look to Tony who is pacing the ground around the ATV.
“What the hell is wrong with her? Why is she bleeding?” I runs towards Tony and punching him in the chest.
“We got over ran by eaters one fell on her and knocked her to the ground. I got him off as quickly as I could, but when she fell she hit the pavement pretty hard. I am scared Wil. What if she doesn't wake up?” He asks with tears rolling down his own face.
Cade and Grant come running over to us. Melody quickly hops out of the ATV and into Grant’s arms.
“Where is Becks?” Cade asks, looking around.
“Sh...She didn’t make it," Tony says looking at the ground.
“What do you mean she didn't’ make it?” Cade demands as he stalks toward Tony.
“We don’t have time for this! Liv is bleeding out of her head! We need to get her inside and lay her down,” Tony says as he pushes past Cade and gets back into the ATV.
I jump in beside Liv and hold her close to me as Tony speeds down the driveway. Once we make it to the gate Jose is quick to open it for us and we speed through. Not waiting for Cade and the others we hurriedly get out. Tony comes over and effortlessly lifts Liv into his arms. I rush over to the front door and yank it open for Tony and he runs inside.
“Where is her room?” He asks looking at me.
“This way,” I say and lead him up the stairs straight to her room. He gently lays her on the bed and I run over to the conjoining bathroom and wet a washcloth in warm water. I dab and wipe her face and with the dried blood out of the way I can clearly see the jagged cut across her temple.
“What exactly happened out there Tony?” I ask looking up at him.
He paces the floor rubbing his hands over his head and face. “We found Melody in an over run town. She was running for her life and you know Liv, she has to be the hero.” He pauses and stops pacing to look at the unconscious Liv. “So we go down. Liv takes the lead, Becky and I were following close trying to shoot most of the eaters out of her way. For every one we dropped it seemed like four more were popping up in its place. S
he got Melody out of the heart of the eaters and as they were making it back up toward us Melody got spooked by one touching her and took off running away from Liv. That’s the first time she fell. We were emptying clip after clip to keep her clear until Becky ran out of bullets and one got to Liv. He tackled her knocking her to the ground. Her arms were pinned under her and she couldn’t fight back. I raced to her, only to have Becky screaming for my help. I look back and an eater has her too.” He pauses and bends down and gently tucks a stray hair behind Liv’s ear. “I couldn’t choose Becky and lose Liv again. So without hesitation I sprinted over and yanked the eater off of Liv and beat his brains in. By the time she was safe it was too late for Becky.” He shakes his head and looks away. “If I would have lost her today I don’t know what I would have done,” he stutters out as he covers his face with his hands and sobs.
I walk over to him and pull him in a hug, “It’s going to be okay Tony. She is going to be okay. You saved her.” I say as I rub small circles on his back as I hug him.
Just then Emily comes running in the room and straight over to Liv laying on the bed.
“Liv. Liv,” she says as she gently shakes Liv’s shoulder.
I release Tony, who quickly wipes his eyes, and go over to Emily.
“Why isn’t she waking up?” she asks, looking up at me with her big, sad, blue eyes.
I bend down until I am eye level with her. “Liv fell and hit her head so she is sleeping right now,” I say in a kind voice.
“M…My mommy was asleep before she tried to bite me.” She backs up away from the bed. “Is Liv going to wake up and try to bite me too?” she asks with a scared look on her face.
I look over to Tony who is tearing up again and I have to fight the tears back to answer her.
“No baby, Liv will never try and bite you. She promised to protect you remember? So she would never hurt you.” I pull her into a hug and she wraps her little arms around my neck and I stand with her in my arms. She pulls back slightly so she can look me in the face as she talks.
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