by mike Evans
Ellie saw that whatever happened on top of the building, it had not been the Turned, or there wouldn't be anything left of them. She started feeling a new wave of nervousness when she realized she might see Shaun, but that by now, if he’d gotten hurt he would most surely be one of the Turned, or he could be hiding and waiting for help. She didn’t think that if he needed help and Shaun had spoken to Clary, that the latter would be sitting, crying in the control room, but would instead be moving with a sense of urgency that would make heads spin.
She reached back down, flicking on the switch to the radio. She began cruising through the few channels that they used; each had its own reason. “Shaun? Shaun, are you there? Are you all right? Do you need help? Are you alive?” But nothing came back, and she stopped speaking for a minute, thinking of what she needed to do. She did not have to debate long, as the dead that had been sitting at the building across the parking lot were now beginning to race across the driveway to where she was. She looked around one more time, making sure that she saw no signs of Shaun before racing down the ladder.
Ellie had parked directly beneath it and she jumped off the ladder onto the seat. She wasted no time gunning the throttle and sending smoke from the tires into the air. She held on tight, standing and leaning forward as the powerful engine practically lifted the front end effortlessly from the ground. She let off the gas until it settled back to the ground and then punched it again.
This time she wasted no time racing away. She was watching behind her, not paying attention to what was right in front of her. There was a horde who had retreated to the tree line when the dead all around them began falling. She stopped, sitting in the middle of the intersection, and seriously began wishing she would have done things a hundred different ways. But in the end, regret was a waste, and there was little that could be done about it now.
She hit her radio, hoping that there might be time before the hordes combined. That by the slightest chance in hell, she might get a turn of luck in her direction, and that maybe help that she knew she didn’t deserve for leaving in haste would be fortunate enough to make it there in time. She hit her radio to the main channel, screaming for Clary, or anyone that she prayed was listening.
Chapter 3
Greg sat in the truck, staring at Clary, who only had one good eye working. Clary’s right eye was able to pick up movement, but it was still far from a hundred percent, and even further from being healed. Lou had instructed him to keep an eye patch on it for the last few weeks.
They had finally convinced Lou into staying after taking out the other’s base and getting revenge for his daughters. He had been dead set for a long time about making a go at it on his own. The thought that it would be easier with only himself and wouldn’t have to worry about carrying others was something he’d realized wasn’t a bad thing. When his daughters, Karen and Theresa, had been taken from him, he’d lost that piece of his heart that had made him so kind, leaving a hole that was going to take a very long time to heal.
Clary looked both ways as they raced down the short highway to where he expected to find Ellie. “You need something, Greg, or are you just trying to creep me out?”
“Now that Kya and Joey aren’t around, why don’t you tell me what is really going on?” Greg asked. “I know that you didn’t want to give her any bad news, but there’s no way that anything good has happened today.”
“At the very least, we can try to do one good thing today.”
“And what is that going to be, bring back McQuaig and Aslin’s corpses?” Greg asked.
“Yeah, that too but I was thinking that we could save Ellie from herself. We need her to get on that damn radio so we can tell her that she has something to look forward to, or at least so she can have some hope,” Clary said with very little hope in his own voice.
Greg nodded, hitting the button to the radio. “Ellie? Ellie, answer. Answer the radio, now!” Nothing came back, so Greg asked Clary, “So, where did Shaun say that he was going? What did he say?”
“He wasn’t too easy to understand, but he sounded broken, upset, sad—I don’t know. Aslin and McQuaig getting killed like that was just too much for him to handle.”
“He blamed himself didn’t he? He’s been kicking his own ass for the last year. It doesn’t matter what we do, we just keep losing people, and he keeps thinking that it is his fault, and there was always something more that he could have done,” Greg said.
“Yeah, well there isn’t a lot we can do about that. He’s going to have to figure out some things on his own and face his demons head on. I don’t know what else there is we can do for him. He went radio silent on us, and only he is going to be able to turn that back on and answer.”
Greg continued trying to use his radio to reach Ellie. Clary could see the veins in his forearms starting to protrude the more he tried and no one answered. “She’s like, going to get herself killed. The two of them are going to get themselves killed. I mean it, and love is going to be what killed both of them.”
“Love isn’t such a bad thing, Greg. Any kind of love at all, for any one thing, is something that can give us what we all need—hope. It’s in big demand right now. I know after those fuckers came onto base, it wiped clean any hopes of us feeling good about what is happening or feeling safe.”
Greg thought of Karen, Theresa, Tina, and Patrick, and tried to shake them out of his thoughts. There’d been too many friends lost. Anyone that he considered a person of interest, or as close to a brother in Patrick’s case, was but one more reminder that there would never be anyone for him.
Greg said, “Once we get someone around, or something that I can have some hopes in, I’ll be happy to revisit this conversation. It doesn’t matter now, what we need to be worried about right now is finding Ellie. We’ll get back to the base and we figure Shaun out next.”
Clary shook his head laughing a little. “What do you mean, we figure out Shaun? What are you going to do? He’s gone Greg. Hopefully he comes back, but if he doesn’t, he doesn’t, and we move on. Ellie can deal with her broken heart. She and Kya will be a fucking mess, but it is what it is. I’d rather have them safe and miserable at the base than to have Ellie dead.”
“Really, as if that needed to be said. Can’t we just go look for him, even for a day or two?” Greg pleaded.
“We can do a lot of things, Greg, but there’s a million different directions he could’ve gone. You tell me which one he went in and that’s the way we can go. Hell, we’ll take everyone with. You just tell me for sure, without a doubt, where he went.”
“All right, I get it, Clary; it doesn’t make it any better though.”
“I wasn’t trying to make it better. It is a shit circumstance and, as usual, there’s very little which we are able to do about it. Do I need to ask you how you feel about it? I know how teens like to express themselves,” Clary remarked sarcastically.
“No, Clary, thanks. You don’t need to ask me how I'm doing. The very fact that he left all of us without saying so much as bye—well not counting you I guess—and he was supposed to be the responsible one. He was going to run this place when you got old and became useless. He was the one with plans, ideas; he knew what he was going to do and was always in charge.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it?”
Greg slammed both hands down on the Humvee’s steering wheel, making the truck swerve. “I didn’t want to talk about it! What I want to do is punch the asshole right in the balls and maybe—just maybe—I’d feel a little better. I mean, where the hell does he get off—road tripping and doing something so stupid. He could have taken me with. You think I don’t want to get off the base from time to time? Given I’d want to come back, but fuck, so stupid, seriously!”
When he was done, Clary chimed in. “Better, Greg?”
Greg’s chest was heaving. He took a second to think about it, opening his hands on the steering wheel and shaking them out, then nodded his head side to side. “Yeah, maybe a little.
I'm still punching him in the balls when we see him. He’ll come back; he can’t stay away forever… unless he doesn’t make it.”
“Try not to think about it. I'm sure over time, you and the others will come to terms. I hate to call him a deserter, but it’s pretty damn close.”
Greg shrugged. “No reason to paint a picture that isn’t true just to try to make us feel better, Clary. God, I'm so pissed though.”
“I know, right in the-”
The radio chirped, interrupting Clary, and both of them reached to grab it off the console. Greg was quicker and pulled it out of his reach hitting the mic button. “Ellie? Ellie, is that you? Is that you, Ellie?”
The two of them could barely hear anything over the roar of her four-wheeler screaming in protest against the abuse. “It is, oh, thank god you answered! I came out to where I thought I would find Shaun and the others. I just needed to see him. I needed to see him one last time and say goodbye I guess, but he wasn’t there. I got a horde coming after me. They are coming from two different directions and I don’t know if I am going to be able to make it out of here. They are everywhere!”
“Ellie, Shaun’s alive; your dumb ass left before Clary realized what he’d said aloud! So like, don’t fucking die. I don’t know where he went, but he didn’t die on that roof!”
“What? What are you talking about? He’s alive? You’re sure?” she fired off questions one after another.
“Yes, when he spoke to Clary, he was still very much alive. Now, where are you, Ellie? We are in a Humvee, we can come help you!” Greg asked, screaming loudly.
No answer came back, and the line went dead on her end.
Clary tore the radio from Greg’s hand. “Ellie? Ellie, speak to us! Where are you? Give me your location!”
Chapter 4
Ellie smiled at the news and tears of joy flooded her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried for joy. She couldn’t believe that she actually just received good news. Ellie felt her chest growing warm, and The Turned that were threatening her future existence became a second thought for a moment. Her heart had never felt relief like this in her young life. “Oh thank God, thank you. Shaun I'm going to kill you for scaring me like that, damn it, but I'm so damn happy that you aren’t dead!”
She went to hit the radio’s button, but ran over one of the dead by mistake, sending the four-wheeler very quickly up and then back down. She reached out to hold on, and in doing so, lost the walkie-talkie, cursing. She chose to hold tight to the handlebars. The immediate image of crashing and having The Turned come after her to rip her apart piece by piece was not overwhelmingly positive.
Ellie let off the gas until she could get control of it and straighten it out. She heard the screams from behind her and heard the instant cracking sound of snapping plastic from the now broken radio.
She ducked down, holding tight to the four-wheeler, and knew if she didn’t make it back to the main road soon that she never would. Ellie could see the gap in the dead closing rapidly. She tried to think of a different plan and nothing came to fruition. She already did not like running from the dead, but the sheer number of them was too much for her. The only thing she could hear was Clary screaming in her mind from training that if you don’t have time to put down fire, you get out of dodge, and you do not waste anytime debating if you are doing the right thing—especially if you are on your own.
Even with the fatherly suggestion ringing through her ears she still debated the gun she had bouncing against her back. She knew that it would take them out, but there was no way she would take out enough before they made their way towards her, with only blood on their mind.
Ellie looked around, hearing a noise that she hoped would lead to a sanctuary. She steered for a bridge, praying that it wasn’t going to just put her in a worse predicament. She watched the dead coming for her; the gap between the dead that she’d wanted to ride through was now gone and the bridge was the only thing she thought might give her the slightest chance. She was trying to gauge if she was going to be able to make it to the bridge before The Turned did. She was going like a bat out of hell, but so were they, as they always did when the hunt was on. They were not leaving her with an abundance of confidence.
Ellie noticed that one of the dead lead the pack and that it was screaming over its shoulder. It appeared to be barking out directions to its followers. Ellie did not like the talk she’d heard about the alphas, and up this point in time to had not seen one. She’d only heard from Shaun and Aslin about them when they’d gone to the blood bank to try to get some supplies.
Aslin had gone into detail about them, not leaving anything to the imagination about how they weren’t much different from the others, but for some reason she thought there was something special about them.
She watched it as it was switching back and forth between just sprinting to it leaping on all fours, making massive distance with each leap. It was dressed in scraps for clothes; it had ripped jeans and a shirt that would more than likely be gone with the next winter wearing on it. She saw that other than the one bite wound, there was no other bite-marks. She wondered if it was possible that the gas had been what had changed this one, and if by chance that might be what made them dominant over the others, that it could be the alpha.
Ellie shook her head and made herself come back to reality. She could hear the river, hoping it would be her savior. She thought that with all the gear she was carrying that she’d be turning herself into a sinking weight. She started shrugging off her backpack, hoping this was the right decision. She drove alongside the bridge’s barrier with the four-wheeler, wishing that she’d have never started this path.
Ellie watched as the bridge got closer and closer, gauging the quickly moving river below. She was grateful that it wasn’t winter and didn’t seem to be a leap to her death. She knew there were plenty of rivers in Iowa that had sandbanks, and was holding her breath that she would not be jumping onto one from two or more stories high; she knew it’d be a guaranteed broken leg, or legs, or god knows what.
Ellie gunned the engine and steered it to run side by side with the bridge’s edge, taking quick deep breaths and getting her nerve up to do what she knew she’d be chastised for later—deservingly so. She held it steady while she swung her leg up over the seat, screaming when it went up on the edge of the small sidewalk, almost colliding into the barrier separating the road to the water’s below. She threw her backpack at the last second and leapt into the air as high as humanly possible, white knuckling her rifle, trying to think of what she was going to do to keep afloat given she had shoes and a twenty plus pound gun in her hands. Ellie had already committed to not letting go of it; she’d use every last ounce of energy she had if it meant having it when the time came when she needed it.
She brought her knees up high as she went over the barrier, looking down at her tennis shoes. She had not been issued the standard issue boots like most because her feet had not yet grown into a pair. She did not want to be different from the others or get special treatment. She’d gone so far to argue with Clary, but he’d explained adamantly that the last thing she wanted to worry about was blisters if she had a hike from hell in front of her.
Ellie looked under her, seeing the dark, murky water. She knew from winter that the dead did not swim, but she was unsure if they would float, given the right circumstances. The last thing she wanted to worry about was those things coming after her, chomping at her to rip whatever piece of body part off her that they could reach.
Ellie closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, knowing she’d be going under further than expected while carrying the rifle. She braced for impact only seconds away, but it never came. She opened her eyes, looking down seeing and at the same time feeling that she was dangling.
Ellie looked up, seeing a snarling alpha Turned staring down at her, growling and screaming as it clutched her top. Spittle and blood flew from its mouth and landed on her forehead. Ellie looked around, the tears of pleasure sh
e’d had but mere seconds to enjoy were now instantly turning to those of fear. She thought of Shaun and everyone else, and all she could do was think of how stupid she was for racing off after a boy only to find out he wasn’t dead, wasn’t there, and that no one knew where he was.
The alpha slowly began to lift her up one handed.
Chapter 5
Kya was pacing around the bunkhouse. They still weren’t comfortable sleeping in there again, but at the same time knew that they would not want to stay in the infirmary forever either. She watched, disgusted and annoyed that there was a two-person run out, and she was not one of the two. She shook her head, giving the finger as their taillights disappeared into the distance.
Joey watched nervously, unsure what he should do. He walked up closer putting a hand out to her shoulder, but pulled it back in, afraid to touch her. In Joey’s eyes, everyone was his friend, and he would do anything for them at a moment’s notice if he could, especially if that meant consoling them. His heart was by far the biggest on base.