by Adams, Taeya
She couldn’t help but to notice half-Aero coming their way. Jackus looked at Parker and saw some people were strangling towards him. They were surrounded by a group of them. “What are these things?” Jackus yelled to Parker.
Guns were fired but not at them. A bullet went into the half-Aero’s head. A girl ran toward them, gun in hand. A smile came on her face. “You’re alive and not bit,” The girl had a bunch of freckles on her face with odd violet eyes. Her light, long brown hair bounced with volume as she ran over. “Come!” The girl shot the nearest thing to them. She started to the road, where another girl – with cold blue eyes – stood and shot at those things.
Jackus ran as fast as she could with Parker but she didn’t want to leave him and she wasn’t going to. When they get to the road, they saw another group running to the crash. The two girls looked at one person and at the exact same time said, “Forres,”
Forres looked at them, wondering how they knew her name.
“Mall,” The girl – whom saved Jackus and Parker – said out of breath.
Forres gave a small nod as Eleanor spoke up. “I’m a nurse,” Jackus put Parker in the car. “I’m coming! Chyler watch Jezabel for me,” Eleanor got in the other side of the car. Forres watched their car drive off. She didn’t know whether to trust them or not to so she followed her gut.
Chapter Seventeen
Day One: March 27th, 2020; 3:56 pm
“Should we trust those people?” Ben asked.
They had all ran back to the gun shop. Forres rubbed her red, wet eyes and began filling a hunting bag with guns, knives, and ammo. There wasn’t much left but she took it.
“Forres!” Ben yelled as zombies flooded the streets like an actually flood.
“I DON’T KNOW!” She yelled at Ben, looking over at him. She looked back at the bag and resumed packing the bag again.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Ben questioned. Forres could sense a hint of concern his voice.
“I just don’t know,” Forres muttered to herself. “We need to go,” Forres held out her hand for Jezabel. Jezabel took it as Forres began leading the way to the back door.
“We are only going to the mall because Eleanor’s there,” Austin stated.
Zander growled at him to shut up. Austin did shut up, not caring any more.
Forres and Jezabel were going to the back door when the owner stepped in front of them. He was short, chubby and absolutely dead. Guts from his ripped open stomach were hanging out and falling to the floor. Before anyone could pull out a knife or gun, a bang came from the other side of the owner’s head, making Forres wince. Quickly, Zander pushed Forres out of the way as the other’s dodge. The bullet skimmed Zander’s arm. He let out a groan of pain as the bullet hit the wall.
“Oh sorry,” A voice came as the owner falls down, finally dead. “You okay?” The freckled face girl appeared. She touched Zander’s arm, flirtatiously, where the bullet had skimmed him. Zander sucked air in through his teeth and winced. “We’ll have that the girl will fix you up.”
Forres stomach churned like a stirring bowl. “How’d you get in?”
The freckled girl looked at Forres, hand still on Zander. She gave a little frown. “That back door,” she pointed over her shoulder with her other hand. “Shall we go?” She turned and started to the back door. The back door glass broke from the weight of the zombies fists when she got close to the door. They started trying climb in all at once.
“Stairs!” Chyler exclaimed, yelling out the first thing she saw. She grabbed the handle to the door marked “stairs,” twisting it and throwing open the door. She led the way up to the way up the stairs as the freckled face girl saw the zombie breaking through the front door and swarm in like a bunch of bees. She shoved, last and next to Jezabel and closed the door.
In a line, they ran to the top of the stair well, hearing the zombie below as they bang themselves against the door. Chyler was the first to reach the top. Out of breath, she fumbled with the doorknob that just wouldn’t turn. “IT’S LOCKED!” She yelled to the others.
Austin barked, “Move, let me see!” and cut through the line. He took two steps at a time. Chyler moved over as Austin started to bang his shoulder against the door.
“Guys?!” Jezabel asks. The door below had just given way.
Forres – not knowing what she was doing – closed her eyes and grabbed Ben’s soft, heartfelt like hand. Ben glanced quickly over at Forres before let out a smile. This was it. His last moments on earth and he would spend it holding her hand. He felt as they’d never let go as if this was forever but deep in his heart he knew it wasn’t. He wished it was.
Forres’s hand tightened with fear as she heard the zombies starting to come up the stairs. She hated that she was weak, weak enough to give up. She wanted crawl into Ben’s arms with fear and lay there forever, well until those things get them.
Either one could even think of being of those things. Rage built in Zander’s chest. He didn’t want to wander the Earth dead. Zander pushed pass the group and nudged Austin to the side. Zander kicked the door as hard as he could with a grunt of effort.
The freckled face girl watched with an amused smile, ignoring the zombies two flights below her.
One flight now as Zander kicked the door harder. Austin could smell the scent of decaying skin. Austin joined in with Zander. Both kicking the door, the door burst open as if it was a person eager to get a secret out.
The group piled out on the roof. As Jezabel and the freckled face girl were about to cross the threshold, zombies on their tails, the freckled face girl stuck out her foot. Jezabel tripped over the foot, half way out and half way in. Jezabel’s head slammed on the rocked roof and became unconscious, unable to save herself.
A zombie grabbed Jezabel’s foot and pulled her back.
The freckled face girl closed the door without a second thought.
Chyler let out a cry and tries to go and save Jezabel. Austin grabbed her waist and held her back. No one could have saved Jezabel beside the freckled girl but she didn’t want to. She didn’t care, either.
What the freckled girl, did care about was that Forres still holding hands with Ben. Anger rippled through her body as she mutters, “We have to go.”
“Where to?” Zander asked, trying not to look at the crying girl in Austin’s arm. He knew if he’d look, he’d might actually cry.
The freckled face girl goes to the edge of the roof and looked down. She then backed up and started to run. She jumped from the gun shop roof. On the next roof, she landed.
The zombies below went wild when they saw her.
“Come on, Forres,” The girl said, waving her hand towards herself.
Forres glanced overs at Ben before slowly letting go of his hand and setting down the hunting bag with the weapons. Forres was getting ready to jump but before she could, Chyler asked something, “Aren’t you afraid?”
Forres looked at her. “Of falling or flying?” She then looked straight ahead and muttered, “Yes,” She took off like a plane on the run way. When she got to the edge, she took a huge leap. She swung her legs for some momentum. Forres doesn’t land but she does a type of spy roll.
Chyler whipped the tears from her cheek. “No… Of her…,” Chyler muttered under her breath, staring at the freckled face girl that was helping Forres up.
Chapter Eighteen
Day One: March 27th, 2020, 3:59pm
A guy in a military and cowboy hat opened the cage.
Eleanor got an uneasy feeling as they pull into the mall parking lot. He closed it after them. The driver pulled the car to a stop. The cowboy guy opened the car door as the military girl and Eleanor tried to the military kid, with the bone sticking out of his leg, out of the car.
“What happened?” The cowboy guy asked. He wasn’t even Texan, he was Latino.
“A helicopter crash while Rayne and I were looking around for supplies. These are the survivors,” The girl with chic platinum hair that had the side shaves s
aid. Eleanor could see tattoos peeking out from her shirt in every place. The tattooed girl jerked her chin to Eleanor and added: “Except for her. She’s from Forres’s group.”
The cowboy got the door and the others carried the military kid into the mall. “Forres is alive?!”
“Yes, let’s just worry about this kid for now,” Eleanor said as they go through a hall and finally got to part of the mall. “Set him on that table,” Eleanor said and they listened. Eleanor silently prayed that the table would him and it did. “You,” Eleanor pointed to a new girl who just stood from the table. She looked as if she was drawing.
“Beatrice,” The girl corrected.
“Beatrice, I want you to go get medical supplies: bandages, cleaning stuff, antibiotics, and anything else you think we’ll need,” Eleanor ordered as Beatrice gave a nod and started off. “A lot of it!” Eleanor added then turns to the cowboy. “You.”
“Sargent,” He answered.
Eleanor fought off the urge to criticize his name. “Sargent… gets belts, long boards and towels.”
Sargent nodded and ran off to get his list.
Eleanor pointed at the tattoo girl. “Bex,” She answered.
“Bex, go get… alcohol. Lots of it,” Eleanor commanded and Bex smirked as she ran off to get what she was told. Eleanor turned to the two military people. “Siblings?”
“No,” The girl replied. “On the same military. I’m Jackus and this is Parker,” Eleanor didn’t know why she guessed them being siblings; Jackus has rusty hair with bright eyes, Parker had dark eyes and hair. “Can you save his leg?”
“If he doesn’t lose too much blood, it’s possible,” Eleanor said, just as Beatrice comes back with two baskets of supplies. Eleanor grabbed one and put it on the table. She pulled out pain killers and water. “Pick up your head, Parker,” She helps him pick up his head so he could take pain killer and drink water.
The other two – Bex and Sargent – came back and set the stuff on the table in Eleanor’s reach.
Eleanor grabbed a bottle of whiskey and opens it. “Drink this,” She gave the bottle to Parker as he lifted up on his elbows. Parker took a sip. “Drink it all,” Parker put the bottle to his lips again and Eleanor tipped it back so he was chugging it all down. As Parker chugged the bottle, Eleanor grabbed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured some on her dirty hands to get them clean.
Eleanor put her hand above his knee. “This will hurt,” she started to pour peroxide on the wounded area. Parker cried out in pain and tried to move his leg but Eleanor had him by the knee. When the burning went away and his cries died down, she set the bottle to the side and cleaned the blood from the wound. “Sargent, fold a belt in half and put it between his teeth,” Sargent did as he was told. With the belt in between Parker’s teeth, she continued, softly putting her hands on his leg, “On the count of three, I‘m going to pop this bone back in place. Okay?”
Parker gripped his teeth on the belt; with his eyes closes he gave a nod to tell Eleanor that he was ready.
“One… Two…,” Eleanor popped the bone in without saying, “Three.” When the bone went back in place, it made a weird noise.
And that weird noise made Beatrice gag.
Parker’s face turned as red as a tomato. “You skipped ‘three’,” Parker stated, through his tighten teeth that were on the belt.
Eleanor started to sew the wound close with a sterilized needle and thick thread. “Did I? Sorry,” Eleanor faked. After sewing the wound, she poured more peroxide on it and cleaned his leg. “Breaks the boards in half and give me more belts.”
Sargent did as he was told without.
“What’s that for?” Jackus questioned.
“It’s to keep his leg straight,” Eleanor clarified as she put two knee high boards on ear side of his injured leg and secured it with a couple of belts. “Now let me see your shoulder.”
“It is fine,” Parker hastily spoke, not wanting to humiliate himself even more.
“No, no. It’s not… This won’t hurt,” Eleanor reassured. “I just need a heavy bag.”
“Here,” Jackus took off her back and hand it to Eleanor.
Eleanor was throw off by the amount of weight was in such a small bag. “What’s in this? A ton of drugs?” Eleanor joked. In her pre-med years, a guy would carry the heaviest bag ever. Later on, Eleanor found out he was stealing pills from the cabinets.
“Something like that,” Jackus muttered under her breath.
Chapter Nineteen
Day One: March 27th, 2020, 4:10pm
Zander tried to swiftly jump to the last building.
It’s starting to get dark and you know what they say: “the freaks come out at night!” Well in this case: “The zombies come out at night.”
It took them a while to get Chyler to jump the building. She was scared of falling and going with the “murderer.”
As Zander goes to land on the edge of the roof, his foot slipped and he was going to falling, trying to grab something.
A hand grabbed his shirt, pulling him up with no problem. The hand had belonged to Austin. Forres had gone to grab Zander but she wasn’t nearly as fast as Austin was. “Thanks,” Zander muttered to Austin, pretending to brush the invisible dust off of him.
“Don’t mention it,” Austin snarled and turned from him. Zander didn’t know whether he was saying it literary or it just said it to say it.
“Where to now?” Ben inquired to the freckled face girl. They never learned her name. Forres guess, the girl though Forres knew her. If Forres had met her before but doesn’t know where or when.
“Downward,” the girl answered, point down to the ground.
Austin scanned the surround around. The stupid zombies were still near the gun store, thinking they were still on the roof.
“The plan is,” the girl continued. “We’ll get to that car and go to the mall. Sounds good?”
“Sounds easy,” Ben muttered, sarcastically as the others mutter a bunch of “sure” or “yeah”. Forres bit her lip as she goes in the hunting bag and pulled out two small guns. She gave one to Chyler and the other for herself.
She closed the bag just as Austin asked, “Do you even know how to use a gun? You were scared of one a second ago…”
“I’m not scared,” Forres barked at him, sending him a glare. Then she turned, looking at the gun in her hand. The handle felt normal in her hands as if she held a gun before. Her hands shook. She was afraid of guns and their powers but she decided she needed to man up… or woman up. “How hard could it be? Just aim, and shoots. Simple,” Forres stomach churned with fear. She couldn’t really understand why guns scared her so much. “Who’s first?”
“How about you?” Zander shrugged.
Everyone looked at her. Some of their eyes expected her to chicken out but Forres won’t or her minded won’t. “I’m not jumping first,” Forres explained. Those words weren’t the words she wanted to say but Forres backed from the edge anyway.
“I’ll do it,” Ben volunteered. He goes to the edge but not before he stole a glance from Forres and gave her a wink. He jumped off the building. Ben bended his knees when his feet came in contact with the ground. He landed perfectly. “Come on, Forres,” Ben said to her. “I’ll catch you,” he must have saw the uneasy look on Forres’s face because he added, “I promise.”
Forres goes to the edge and took a leap off the building. She closed her eyes until she feels warm hand on her waist. Ben had caught her as he promised. Forres let out the breath she was holding and opened her eyes to see Ben’s light brown eyes smiling brightly at her.
Ben gave her a sly smile, making her knew feel like jelly as her heart fluttered like a butterfly. Ben was truly handsome in Forres’s eyes. She loved the way his brown crew cut hair stood up in the front and also the small freckles are scattered around his pale skin as if they were playing connect-the-dots. He was taller than Forres – everyone was – but Forres loved the way it fit on him.
The freckled face gi
rl jumped down next to Forres and Ben, breaking Forres from Ben’s spell. Zander jumped down and stared at Forres and Ben. Forres tried to ignore him and looked up at Chyler.
Chyler was shook, worst then a cold Chihuahua. Austin took her hand and whispered, “Let go,” Together, they jumped down.
Austin forgot to bend his knee. From head to toe, a shock wave of pain shot throughout his body. Now he has a hurt arm that stayed curled to his chest and an ankle injury. Austin let out a yelp, attracting some attentions of unwanted guest.
“We need to go,” Zander said raising his gun. They started out the alley. Austin was limping so Forres looped her arm around Austin’s lower back. He gave her a blank look but she ignored him and helped him to the nearest car.
They all hurried to a car. “Cover me!” Ben said, taking out a small kit from his pocket that was used to pick locks. He was prepared as if he had wanted to do this all his life. As Ben begin to pick the locks, Zander, Austin, Chyler and the girl covered him with their guns. Forres watched Ben skillfully pick the lock. His face in thought and his tongue curled up towards his upper lip.
Forres suddenly wondered why someone so skilled could like or even flirt with her. She wasn’t skilled at anything or even pretty or skinny compared to the freckled face girl. Maybe he wasn’t flirting with her and it was in her head with the voices in her head.
“Forres? FORRES!” Ben screamed as he pulled her into the back seat, onto his lap. When her shoulder hit the first seat, she was jostled out of her daydream.
“How did…?” Forres started and looked around the car that was suddenly driving. She knew she had daydreamed but she swore it was only for a few seconds.
“Well, while you were staring off in space,” Zander started. He was in the middle of the back seat, the freckled face girl on his right and Ben and Forres on his left. Chyler was in the passage seat and Austin was driving, a bit crazy. “Ben was stupid enough not to check the door first. It was open with the key in it.”