by W. A. R.
One hour later:
George gazed around at the Biters that were aiming towards their trucks. They had parked behind a house, the yard having grown up, and ivy climbing the house itself. They were hidden, which was good considering the circumstances. What was not good, however, were the number of Biters that seemed to be around. Still, they had a mission to complete, and after witnessing all four doors on the Silverado opening, he knew that no one had backed down. He hadn’t really expected them to, not really; the entire foursome in that truck had something at stake. And maybe, just maybe, they didn’t realize how much they really had to lose. They may have thought they had nothing else to lose, and for a moment he might had considered them right, but something deep within George knew otherwise, and he vowed then that he wouldn’t let them lose sight of what they did have.
Slowly, he tossed Katie and Rick a knowing look. Katie shifted nervously in her seat, twisting her fingers into a tangled mess while Rick returned his stare, nodding and opening his door. Katie never budged and George never questioned it. Instead, he once again kept his mouth shut and climbed out, retrieving his knife from his hip, turning to destroy the Biters that ambled listlessly towards their trucks. It was bothersome, he realized as he took down one, and then another, grunting with the effort; it was bothersome that these creatures were so many. Why were there so many there? Then he shrugged, realizing that they were indeed close to the town of Thurston. That had to be it. He took down a fourth, his fingers coated with the thick almost oily substance of their tar-like blood and he grimaced, disgusted with the feel of it. He turned to see Amber take down one, Buddy and Cassie flanking her and doing the same. Rick glanced around then, taking in how many more were coming in from the woods, and breathed a sigh of relief before stepping forward over the dead bodies of these monsters to pursue what was left. Katie, however, remained in the truck, watching the brutal uncaring display before her. George shook his head, his heart pounding and his irritation rising. He quickly swung with his right hand, driving his knife into the head of a Biter to the hilt, stopping it immediately. He released a heavy breath and jerked it back, knife in hand, and awaited yet another one. There were no gunshots, and there wouldn’t be unless needed. He hoped that it wouldn’t come to that. He hoped that these people would understand that they were prisoners and that there would be no getting out of it. He hoped they gave up willingly and didn’t force them to fight because he knew…he knew that his people would. They would fight until their last breath, and their cause was much more justified. They had more reason to do so. These strangers, these imposters would lose. There was no doubt about that.
Finally, the Biters diminished and they all came together between both vehicles, readying guns and bows. Sweat covered each of their faces, blood coating their hands and their clothes. They didn’t seem to care, and George decided that they didn’t. They had grown too accustomed to the plight of destroying these monsters in order to survive…and had done so that it no longer occurred to them that once, just once a long time before, they were human. They were monsters, creatures, and they were no longer human. He turned his head to the sound of approaching footsteps, seeing a timid Katie approach them, arms wrapped securely around herself. George understood that there was something heavy on her mind, and that whatever she was turning over in her mind was about to come out of her mouth and he realized then that he was going to think her weak for whatever it was she was going to say. She was weak and it irritated him that in the wake of disaster she was relying on others to protect her and save her, just as she had since the outbreak had begun. He knew her story, as she had told them all at one point or another and it bothered him now, that after he thought she had learned, after she had run and regretted it, that she was doing nothing except running once again. She had learned nothing from her regrets and that was frustrating. It wasn’t long before everyone turned their eyes to her, each person admitting that there was an awkward silence that had crept up on them. One by one they acknowledged this and one by one they pointed out who it was and what it was that formed this awkward silence. Amber was the last, and he thought that maybe this was because she held out hope for the woman. Then again, he could be wrong. He doubted it though.
Katie shifted, finally looking among them all. “I can’t do this.” She admitted, and if she expected to see surprised faces or shocked expressions, she was out of luck. Instead, what she got was disappointment on many different levels. No one said a word, but then again, they didn’t have to. Her eyes began brimming with tears and she moved her feet, dropping her arms. She was defensive then, he could see it. “I can’t do this like you all can.” She spat accusingly, the tears that had been on edge finally spilling over. Again, no one said anything, they only stared at her. She was defensive because she was feeling guilty. George knew it, Katie knew it, hell, everyone knew it. “I can’t be like y’all. I can’t torment someone for my own needs or pleasures.” Amber tilted her head to the side. Damien; Katie was discussing Damien. “I can’t kill innocent people like you all can. I won’t.”
George felt fire run through his veins and he stepped forward, adjusting the 30.06 on his shoulder. “If we hadn’t killed those people we would never have made it out.”
“And they were far from innocent.” Rick commented then, his voice tart and laced with an edge that slightly resembled anger.
“How can you not find justification with what we did? We have saved your life countless times. Your life alone.” Buddy returned dryly. All three men stared down hard at her, and she returned the heated gaze with one of her own. It was ridiculous to feel so…. irate…over something so small but that was just it…it wasn’t small. It was huge. They needed her, they needed everyone they could get and here, at the very last minute she was backing out of their plan. Just whenever they were about to go into a battle she was leaving them. She was supposed to be a part of their team, a part of them and she was pulling herself from it of her own accord.
“Katie…is this really how you feel?” Amber finally asked and George turned to look at her, Cassie watching her mother as she spoke. Her tone of voice was gentle and calming, almost soothing and maybe even a little saddened. Katie noted this and shed a few more tears, her voice trembling as she released her fists, letting her hands hang at her sides. Her shoulders dropped slightly…you almost wouldn’t be able to notice had you not been watching. She appeared defeated, and yet defiant and sound in her decision and the reasoning therein.
“Yes.” Katie replied evenly, though her words wavered with the move of her lips.
Amber nodded then before glancing at everyone around her. “If that is the case then you can stay here. I won’t…we won’t ask you to do something that you simply cannot do. You may think badly of us but understand that we have done what needed to be done and we will continue to do so. If this becomes too troublesome for you then…I am sorry but you are not being forced to stay with this group. You can leave whenever necessary.” Amber told the woman, her words stern and leaving no room for argument. Katie stared back at her, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped slightly, parting her lips in a surprised ‘O’. It was as if she hadn’t expected what was said and yet still she knew that it was coming. Amber cleared her throat. “You are a part of this family, Katie, and no one will judge you any differently for whatever you decide to do, whether it is today, tomorrow, or weeks from now or whatever you decide not to do. If you do not wish to participate you do not have to, but we will be. And right now, you can stay in the truck because we do not have time to stand here and discuss your fears and moral battles. Stay here and be safe. We will be back shortly.” And with that, Amber turned from Katie and began towards the tree line, her mind racing with the possibilities that the next few hours were going to offer. Katie stifled a sob and turned from them all as well, racing towards the truck she had previously accompanied. Slowly, everyone shifted away from the sound of the truck door closing and towards the wood line where Amber stood, hands on her hips, sword h
andles rising above her shoulders and Miles’s guns brushing against her knuckles.
“Alright…I think it is safe to say we need to get this started.” She began, her eyes roaming over every member of their party that stood before her. She bit her bottom lip. “Cassie, you and Jacob will scale the trees whenever we get close enough. Buddy and George,” she turned and glanced at the two men. “you two will round to the other side of the plant, scaling those trees and preparing your aim like Cassie and Jacob. This way we will have them from both sides. I doubt they send too many men out for us if they do intend to capture us. These people seem far too cocky for their own good.”
Buddy narrowed his eyes at her. “You aren’t going to confront them alone, are you?” he asked. She shook her head.
“No.” she replied vaguely. She then resigned, defeated. “Rick will be covering me from the sideline.” Everyone stared at her, worrying evident on their features. George shrugged his tense shoulders, his hands trembling with the anticipated excitement.
“So you are going to go into the open alone.” George stated, feeling suddenly sick.
Amber sighed, running a hand over her matted hair. “Look, we don’t know what is going to happen, and this way it just makes more sense.”
“How does it make more sense? You would be risking your life!” Rick exclaimed, catching her fiery glare. She ran her foot along the rocks on the ground before addressing is statement.
“Because Ryder knows that we have Damien and if he knows that then I am sure he has told the others what we have done. Damien is Adrian’s son and if they want him back they won’t touch me.” Amber replied and still, everyone seemed uncomfortable. “Look, guys, I don’t like this any more than you do, but this way we will be able to corner them, surround them and still maintain a distraction. Just…trust me on this. If they know what I did to Damien, then they know that his dad will want me alive for his own twisted revenge. They won’t kill me. They might hurt me, but they won’t kill me. They would kill any one of you in an instant and I won’t risk that.”
It made sense, really it did, with one exception. “They wouldn’t kill us. They would force information out of us just as we did with Damien.” George replied and after a moment Amber turned her sad eyes to his. She hadn’t wanted to say it, hadn’t wanted to express the lengths with which they did do this task. He mentally kicked himself.
“I can’t have that either and you know why.” She said thickly, swallowing whatever emotion seemed to catch in her throat. “I won’t have that happen to any of you. Just trust me, do as I say and have my back in case I’m wrong.” She leveled her gaze at a worried yet determined Cassie. “Even though I’m not.”
And with that they all began to move, their shoes, their boots vaguely dragging the leaves and limbs along the forest floor as they moved. They weren’t exactly silent; Amber, Jacob, and Cassie more so that George and Rick. Buddy seemed to walk on air, however, which was odd considering how loud he normally carried his feet. He was tense, apprehensive and unsure. The look was on his face once again and George withheld a sigh. George himself was just as nervous as Buddy was. He hoped that Amber was right in her judgment, and that her decision to enter alone was the right one. He swallowed, feeling the fear grab a hold of him. He couldn’t lose her. She was like his sister. And suddenly his heart ached…it ached with something he had long forgotten. Bobby. He could possibly lose her just as he had lost Bobby and that thought scared the hell out of him. He immediately didn’t want to go any further, but his body kept moving, surging forward with everything he had, regardless of whether his mind was in on it or not. He wanted to call out to them, reached them all and grab their attention but he didn’t…he couldn’t.
This continued for minutes, fifteen, maybe twenty or thirty. He wasn’t sure. To him the trek felt like hours until they reached the wood line to the timber plant. They stuck to the trees, seeing that no, there was no one there yet and no, there was no one seen within the woods either. It was real…so very real and there was no escaping it. They were in their own perpetual doom and there was no running from it. And for just one brief moment, that cowardice within him lurched about, telling him that maybe Katie had been right, had been smart. Though his reasoning was for fear of losing those he cared for, while hers was fear of losing herself…still it was there. He thinned his lips into a fine line, refusing to say anything. He wasn’t going to be lumped into the category with her. He was stronger than that and he wasn’t going to let any of these people down. He turned from the vacant parking lot of the plant and watched as Cassie and Jacob strapped their weapons across their back on their shoulders and began fluidly climbing two trees a good distance from one another. The four adults watched as they did this, and they remained that way, their eyesight on them until they were settled high within the trees, the very outlines of them tangled in the mess of leaves and limbs. They were barely noticeable and that thought brought a sense of comfort to George. As they slung their weapons back around to settle in their hands the four adults turned away. Amber motioned a ways down for Rick to kneel behind a bush. It offered him a clear shot of where she intended to be whenever they arrived. She knelt down low beside him while George and Buddy took out two Biters that were a few yards off, and she whispered something in his ear. He nodded slowly and she stood again, tossing the last two men a questioning glance. They nodded and turned, following her through the woods, rounding the timber plant as they did so in order to end up on the other side of the plant, opposite Cassie and Jacob.
It was silent as they moved along, their feet heavy and their minds wondering over the possibilities. George spared Buddy a look, one that he immediately read into, and he knew that Buddy didn’t like this entire situation any more than he did. Still, they weren’t going to argue with her. They could let her know how concerned they were though, and George intended to do just that.
“I don’t like this.” He told her and he felt disappointed in the fact that she didn’t even look his way. Instead, she trudged forward on her mission, unable to be deterred in the least. Buddy rolled his shoulders and cleared his throat.
“Me either. You shouldn’t be going out there alone.” He told her and George found himself nodding in agreement. She sighed then, at least acknowledging that they had said something to begin with.
“I wouldn’t do it if I thought there was a better way. I am asking you to trust me on this.” She said plainly, and though her words begged for the two men to let it go, they simply couldn’t.
“What if it is a trap? What if they have your brother or Shelly or even Miles hostage to make you cooperate?” Buddy prodded and George sidestepped a fallen tree, feeling his gut twist with the inevitable knowledge that she was not going to back down. “What would happen if they got the better of you, huh?”
She shot him a cold glare, one that made George second-guess second-guessing her. “That is a lot of ‘what-ifs’, Boudreaux.” She said, and the use of his full name made him visibly anger. But then, it quickly vanished whenever she sighed sadly, her soft and melancholy voice carrying on the wind so light that he almost didn’t hear her. “What if none of that happens? What then?”
“Amber, listen to yourself, please.” George pleaded their case then. “You are hoping for something that probably isn’t going to happen. I mean think about it. The likelihood of them actually cooperating is slim to none.” He told her and for a long moment she remained silent. It only seemed to heighten his anticipation. She rounded the last curve of the wooded outline of the plant and shifted her eyes to the trees ahead of her. She never wavered, and her shoulders tensed, squaring as if ready to fight.
“You don’t know that.” she returned calmly, her voice almost silent. Buddy ran up to her, keeping her pace with his own. His eyes were raging and determined and she refused to give him the leverage or the attention that he so desperately wanted. George watched the interaction, feeling the underlying hostility between the three of them but he refused to address it; they re
fused to address it.
“The three of them could be dead by now! Listen to yourself!” and with his words, she halted, and George almost stumbled over her. She turned to Buddy, her eyes daring him, challenging him and he straightened, towering over her and yet still intimidated by the woman before him. For the first thirty seconds, George could have sworn that she was going to hit him. For the second thirty seconds, George realized that she wasn’t, and yet still neither of them moved. Finally, finally, after all the silence and the tension she parted her lips to speak, moving her hand to point at a tree to her left.
“This is your tree. Feel free to climb it and have my back while I’m out there.” She ground out between her teeth and quickly she returned to her previous walk, reaching back and gripping a handful of George’s shirt to drag him with her. She left it at that, silently letting Buddy know that whatever he decided to do, she wouldn’t care. There was absolutely no turning back for her. He tossed one final glance over at Buddy who, after an agonizingly long moment, turned and shimmied up the tree. The last pair, the final two continued walking with no sounds other than that of their footfall on the forest floor. Again, he didn’t mind…hell, after what had just happened, he preferred it be that way. He wouldn’t admit to her that he was afraid…after all, what man would? Especially to a woman that was about to risk her life in place of risking those of others in order to save three more people she cared about. And as he thought this, her footsteps slowing, he admired her and the woman he was, just as he had the moment she had first found him and saved him.
Finally, she stopped, placing a hand against his chest to prevent him from going any further. She tilted her head back, glancing between the top of the tree to the open parking lot through the bushes and limbs. “This will be your tree.” She told him, shifting her azure gaze to his. Her eyes were sad and tired, so very tired, and yet there was strength and resilience in them that of which he had never seen before. Without warning, and without even realizing what it was that he was doing, he wrapped his arms securely around her, embracing her and holding her against him. She was surprised momentarily, but soon relaxed and fell into him. They stood like this, breathing calm and steady, maybe the slightest bit shaky due to the circumstances and they clung to one another without regret. It wasn’t long until the distant sound of trucks drifted into their senses and they knew it was time. “Wait on my signal to act. Be careful and like I told the others, should anything happen, run. Run as fast as you can.” She told him and before he knew it she was gone, darting from the trees and into the openness of the parking lot before him.