by Raymond Lee
“Is that going to work?”
“I hope so. Brace yourself for impact.”
Hal hit the wall of infected at full speed, effectively mowing down the ones in front. The truck jostled heavily as they drove over the infected who fell beneath the tires, their speed decreasing due to the obstacle.
“I’m so gonna throw up,” Elijah said before leaning over the edge of the truck to vomit. A hand reached up and grabbed his shirt.
“Elijah!” Raven grabbed his arm as the zombie attempted to pull him from the truck and yanked back with all her strength as Leah shot the zombie in the head, breaking its hold.
Raven fell backward as the truck bounced over the last of the bodies and careened out of control. She hit the side of the truck as it spun and tumbled over the edge, landing on her side on the road. Her breath left her lungs, effectively silencing the scream she would have otherwise unleashed had she been able to put a voice to her panic upon realizing she was now on the expressway with the creatures trying to kill them.
Survival instinct kicking in, Raven ignored the pain shooting through her hip and rolled to a stand, taking off after the zigzagging truck. She could see the fear-filled expressions on her friends’ faces as they watched her try to catch up to them while they clung to whatever they could hold for dear life.
The truck spun, its left side slamming into the divider, finally bringing it to a stop. Elijah and Leah tumbled over the side into the southbound lanes, and quickly scrambled back into the truck bed as Damian provided cover fire for them, their crash catching the attention of the infected mob now spilling out of the woods on both sides of the expressway.
Cruz jumped down from the truck and ran toward her. “Raven! Behind you!”
She reached for her katana as she saw him take aim, and pulled it free as she spun to see a middle-aged dead man with milky white eyes leading the charge of five zombies barreling down on her.
A bullet whizzed past her head and landed in the lead man’s forehead, snapping his head back before he fell to his knees before her. Raven swung the katana as the second zombie approached. Still a little dizzy from her fall off the truck, she spun with the motion. The blade effectively chopped off the second zombie’s head, rendering it harmless, but having spun with her swing, she found herself facing a panic-stricken Cruz running toward her as she backed into the remaining creatures.
“No!” Cruz screamed, his cry thunderous as everything around Raven disappeared. She could only see his wide terror-filled eyes as she felt the pain burn into her clavicle. She could tell he screamed because his face was twisted in rage and disbelief but she heard nothing from his open mouth. The sound of her own heartbeat drowned out his cries and the hail of bullets she knew she should be hearing.
I should have kept my coat zipped, she thought as pain seared through her skin and warm blood poured down her neck. It would have protected me but I guess I don’t deserve that. I let Sky die this way. I deserve nothing less.
She was able to hear Cruz’s powerful anger-filled roar again just as blackness engulfed her.
“Raven!” Damian screamed before his breath seized. He watched helplessly as blood poured down Raven’s chest. She stood there in the thing’s arms, watching Cruz run toward her, expressionless. No fear, no pain, just a surreal nothingness.
“Damian!”
He heard Leah’s voice but didn’t acknowledge her. He watched, transfixed, as the undead man pulled back and opened its mouth to take another bite, but it didn’t get to take its fill. Cruz plowed into it and ended its life with a blade to the forehead before standing up and shooting the remaining pair of zombies running toward Raven, who they now viewed as an easy meal.
She fell to her knees and pitched forward but Cruz grabbed her behind the waist before she could face plant. Cruz checked the damage, threw his head back and roared.
“Damian!”
The terror in Leah’s tone snagged his attention, pulling Damian away from the horror of watching a friend who’d become more like a sister die before him as he stood by helpless to do anything. He turned to find Leah and an infected woman playing tug of war with Elijah’s lanky body. The boy screamed in pain and fear as the diseased woman’s mouth came dangerously close to his arm.
“This is for Raven!” Damian shouted, shooting a hole through its forehead before he lost another member of his group to the undead bastards.
“There’s too many!” Leah cried, helping Elijah to his feet.
“I know.” Damian quickly reloaded his gun. Every time they got through one wave of zombies, another emerged from the wooded area and Hal hadn’t gotten the truck started yet. “Can you make another of those bombs?”
“I don’t have a bottle.”
“OK, then just do your best to cover the ones coming from the southbound lanes. Janjai’s got the front covered. I’m going to clear a path for—”
He looked to where he last saw Raven and Cruz but they were gone. A small puddle of blood marked the place he’d seen Raven go down. Dead zombies lay haphazardly around the area but Cruz was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Cruz and Raven?” Leah asked.
“Gone.” Damian growled. “That crazy bastard knew she was going to turn and we’d have to kill her so he took her.”
“Can’t dwell on that,” Leah advised. “We got another wave coming.”
Damian cursed under his breath and started shooting at every pair of milky white eyes he saw coming, soon shooting blind as tears filled his own eyes, hindering his line of sight.
“What’s that?” Elijah asked as gunshots sounded from farther up the expressway.
They looked up the southbound lanes to see two trucks headed their way, a group of men in the back of each one taking out zombies in an impressive display of firepower. Another truck came down the northbound lanes in the wrong direction, driving straight toward them.
“The people from my neighborhood?” Elijah asked, his voice high pitched with fear.
“No, not this far out and from that direction,” Damian said, “but that doesn’t mean they’re good guys either.”
The men in the two southbound trucks worked together to wipe out the remaining zombies while the third truck approached them.
“Hello,” a tall, bearded man with piercing blue eyes greeted them. He stood in the back of the truck, holding onto a rack on top for support, a rifle resting against his shoulder. “Everyone friendly?”
“That would depend on you,” Damian said, straightening his shoulders as he wiped the tears from his face, not wanting to give the group of men any reason to consider him weak.
The engine finally turned over, allowing Hal to pull the truck away from the divider. He moved it about a foot before it puttered out and died again.
“I don’t think you’re going to get far in that,” the man said.
Hal swung his door open and got out. “What happened to Raven? Where’s Cruz?”
Damian shook his head and Hal slammed his fists down on the roof of the truck.
“All clear on this side,” a man from the southbound trucks called, having finished littering the southbound lanes with bodies.
“Good job, Jessup,” the blue-eyed man said. “Stand guard for stragglers.”
“We appreciate the help,” Hal said, acknowledging the group. “We aren’t looking for trouble and we don’t have anything useful. We need to find two of our people and we’ll be on our way through to Nebraska.”
“We don’t want anything from you,” the man said, smiling. “We’re here to help. We have a farm a ways up. We make these little treks out and about to look for the supplies we can’t grow ourselves and of course to look for other survivors. It looks like you ran into a great deal of trouble here.”
Hal nodded, not able to dispute that. “We appreciate the help. We need to be on our way.”
“In what? Sounds like you’re having some engine trouble.”
Hal glanced to the right, where Raven had fallen. “We have feet. M
y guys, let’s go. We have to find Raven.”
“She got bit,” Damian announced.
Hal froze, the color draining from his face. “You’re sure?”
Damian nodded. “Cruz jumped off to help her but he was too late. I saw it happen. She’s gone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the man said. “We’ve lost quite a few of our own since this started but we’ve rallied together and made a nice community. We’re rebuilding.”
“That sounds good,” Hal said. “I wish you the best of luck with that. Now, like I said, we don’t want any trouble.”
Pimjai cried out.
Hal ducked his head back into the cab. “What’s wrong?”
“Hurts.” She held one hand over her belly and gripped the dashboard with her other. Janjai rubbed soothing circles over her back.
“She’s been hurting a while but she’s been trying to ignore it since we were under attack and had to focus on shooting.”
“You got a pregnant one in there?” The blue-eyed stranger asked, having squatted down in the truck bed to inspect the interior of their vehicle. “We got a doctor. Look, if you don’t want our help we’re not going to force it on you but it wouldn’t be Christian to let a pregnant lady suffer if we can help her. Tim over here is a decent mechanic, he can take a look at your vehicle, but I think she needs to be looked at too.”
Pimjai looked up at Hal, her eyes begging for help.
“You had a similar dream,” Janjai whispered. “Raven will rise again. She will be fine.”
Hal closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the truck. He’d dreamed this would happen just as he’d dreamed Carlos’s death. However, he’d also dreamed of Cruz’s plague.
“Damian, what happened to Cruz?”
“He was with her but he was too late to save her. I turned to help Leah keep Elijah from getting bit and by the time I turned around they were gone. I think he knew we’d have to kill her when she turned so he just took her, man.”
Hal ran a hand down his face and tried to think. They hadn’t had the best luck with people, but Leah, Carlos, and Elijah had been decent. These people had helped save them while they were stuck in the middle of a crowd of infected and no one had pointed a gun at them.
“At least let Tim check out that engine while you’re thinking about it,” the man suggested. “Whether you go with us, or out on your own again, you need to have reliable transportation for that young lady.”
Pimjai gasped. Hal looked in to see tears roll down her face.
“What’s your name?” he asked the blue-eyed man.
“David. David Chambers.”
“Well, David Chambers, I’m Hallelujah Brown. These people are my family and we protect each other. We’ll come to see your doctor but after that we leave. We’re good people, Mr. Chambers, but if you aren’t, we’ll have to do what we need to do, understand?”
David’s men bristled at this but their leader raised a hand midway, indicating for them to stand down. He flashed a toothy, white smile at Hal. “I love the name, Hallelujah, it speaks of a good Christian upbringing. I respect your devotion to your people. As I said, we’re a community, and we protect each other in the same way. I think once you’ve seen what we’ve put together, you won’t want to leave and that’s fine. For now, let’s just focus on getting this truck running again and getting this young mother-to-be some medical attention. Tim, take a look at their truck.”
A dark headed man in his late thirties with thick rimmed glasses jumped off their truck and set to work, inspecting the damage inflicted when Hal crashed through the wall of zombies and slammed into the divider.
“Hal.” Damian jumped down to the road and walked close to him. “You really think we can trust these guys?”
Hal sighed. “We don’t have much of a choice. Pimjai is in pain and I don’t know if she’s having complications. She needs a doctor and they say they have one.”
“So we go with them.”
“So we go with them… but we keep our guard up. I’m not a big fan of people who tell me once I see something I won’t want to leave. Sets my bells and whistles off.”
Raven opened her eyes and stared at the water stain on the ceiling. She’d had the most horrible dream. Zombies were real, Sky was dead, and she was about to turn into one of the monsters that had killed her.
“Hey.”
Raven frowned. That voice didn’t belong outside the dream realm, and come to think of it… there wasn’t a water stain on her bedroom ceiling.
She sat up, too quick, and the unfamiliar room spun around her.
“You shouldn’t get up.” Cruz sat on the edge of the bed and gently lowered her down. “I got the bleeding to stop, but sudden movements like that might start it right back up.”
“The bleeding?” She remembered. Searing, hot pain, the wet ooze of blood, the scent of copper. “I’ve been infected.”
“Yeah.” Cruz lowered his head. “I tried to get to you. It happened so fast and I couldn’t shoot it without shooting you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s not anyone’s fault.”
“Doesn’t feel that way.”
“It’s hot.” Raven wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and it came back damp.
“The fever must have started.” Cruz sniffed as he reached for a bowl on the nightstand. He took a rag from it, wrung it out, and dabbed her forehead. “That’s quicker than I expected.”
Raven took a deep breath as she heard his voice hitch, willed herself to be strong. “Don’t cry for me, Cruz.”
“You were right there with me, and then you weren’t. I let you slip right past me, and then I ran, but I couldn’t run fast enough.”
“It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself or I swear I’ll haunt you.”
“That’s not funny.” He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “You will haunt me, Raven. Every day I stay alive and you’re gone, you’re going to haunt me. I’m going to replay that scene in my head a million times a day, pinpointing when I could have saved you, and when I failed instead.”
“Remember the times you did save me,” Raven suggested, her eyes watering from the heat behind them.
“Those don’t matter now.” Cruz put the rag away and ran the sides of his hands down her cheeks, wiping away the water that had spilled from her eyes. “Do you want to try to drink something?”
Raven swallowed, felt the dryness in her mouth. “You all shouldn’t waste your supplies on me.”
“It’s no waste making you comfortable, and there’s a whole well full of water outside.”
Raven frowned. They’d been on the expressway, a few hours away from Lincoln, when they’d hit the wall of infected and she’d tumbled out of the truck. The area was rural but there were so many infected people coming out of the trees, surrounding them. She’d been disoriented from the impact of the fall but had managed to stand. She recalled taking out one of the zombies but she’d been too dizzy to stand her ground. She’d spun with the swing of her katana and backed right into another zombie’s arms. She couldn’t see it but she’d felt the thing’s teeth break through her skin, felt the pain as the infection entered her bloodstream. The only thing she saw during that moment that couldn’t have been longer than a few seconds yet seemed to stretch out for an hour was Cruz running toward her, his face twisted in a mixture of rage, fear, and loss. The others had been in the truck when she was bitten, then everything went black. They were still on the truck. She didn’t remember anything between the bite and waking up in the strange bed in the strange room. It was very quiet. The walls were wood paneled, and a small window across from the bed was dirty as were the pale yellow curtains. They definitely hadn’t made it to the military base.
“Where are we?”
“A little cabin I found off the expressway. There’s nothing much around here. I didn’t think I was going to find anything for a while but I could see a chimney above some of the shorter trees when I ran
down the ramp so I ran toward it. I knew there had to be something. I finally came up on this little cluster of cabins before you bled out.”
“The others?” Raven struggled to sit up, her body weak.
“Raven, relax. You shouldn’t—”
“Where are the others?” She looked around the room, not seeing any sign of others being with them. There were no backpacks or other items in the room and no sound whatsoever came from beyond the open bedroom door. “What happened to them? Did they die?”
“I don’t think so.” Cruz ran a hand through his hair, scratching his head nervously. “I had to get you to safety.”
“You left them?”
“They saw you get bit,” Cruz said, looking her in the eye for the first time since she’d awakened. “They would have killed you. I had a choice to make and I only had a second to make it.”
“You chose to leave them.”
“I chose to get you somewhere safe and to protect you in your final moments. I couldn’t let them just end your life.”
“My life is already over, Cruz. I’m infected. I’m going to get sick, and I’m going to die.”
“And when you die I’ll do what I have to do, but I wasn’t going to let them kill you before it was your time. You’re still alive now. I still have you now.”
“They were under attack.” Tears streamed from Raven’s eyes. “I’m already dead. You should have just left me and helped them.”
“Do you really think that was possible? I love you, Raven. I know you don’t feel the same but that doesn’t change what I feel. I couldn’t leave you behind to be eaten, or to die slowly on your own. I couldn’t let them put a bullet through you, not while you’re still you. Be angry with me if you need to be, or go ahead and hate me, just understand I couldn’t leave you and I couldn’t kill you.”
“Are you going to be able to put a bullet through my brain when I die?”
He nodded, his jaw clenched tight.
“Cruz, don’t let me come back a monster. The second I’m dead you have to put the bullet through my brain. Promise me.”
“I promise. I won’t let you turn into a monster.” He said the words, but he didn’t look at her.