“It sounds wonderful. I wish I could go with you. I’m glad you’ve found a place that’s yours,” Val replied.
Sara wanted to say more. She desperately wanted to relate the depth of her excitement about her new land. But words failed her.
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙
The weeks dragged on until everyone admitted they were lost. Most guessed they still wandered in Texas. The horrible sandstorms picked up again and concealed any landmarks. In the wind, they lost the road and now had no land markers to guide them. Connor had taken the time to find a compass in Amarillo but now discovered he had sat on it and the device was broken. As they walked, Connor tried to fix it but never managed to.
Val took point as they trudged through the sandstorm. Her machete cut the wind as she held it out in front of her. At one point the sand became so dense everyone lost track of each other. Sara grabbed the nearest hand to her which turned out to be Chuck’s. The two hunkered down together against a nearby rock. The sands blew so furiously Sara wondered if they’d be buried in it.
A hand came reaching from the chaos. Sara went to grab it but it slashed her face instead. A gnarled face appeared from the sands ready to bite into her. Sara kicked the zombie back and pulled out a sword. When it attacked again Sara quickly slashed it. But as soon as she did, two more took its place. Sara fought the first off and desperately kicked Chuck so he would look up and engage the second.
The humans barely overcame these next two before another zombie approached. This one jumped onto Sara knocking her over. Chuck quickly saved her but it became clear they could not stay put. Chuck and Sara stumbled through the chaos desperately looking for the others and killing the foes they encountered. When they couldn’t locate the others, Sara became scared. She decided to stay put but when they did, the attacks seemed much more frequent and powerful.
When the two could no longer keep back the attacks, Sara yelled for Chuck to retreat. The two humans ran out into the wilderness blindly. Now on the move, the attacks seemed much easier to manage.
With luck, they happened to stumble against a metal object. As they explored it, it seemed to be a building of sorts. On the far side, they discovered a staircase leading up to another level. Sara was desperate to get off the wilderness floor and into something solid so the two climbed until they located a door. After exploring it cautiously, they entered it and closed the door.
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙
Now inside, their ears rang from the intensity of the wind they left. The darkness closed in on them and they did not speak for hours. Only the noise of the storm outside beat against their ears. Sara occupied herself with counting their belongings. Chuck had a backpack with him that boasted some food and water. They both had swords and Sara had her pistol. Chuck could not find his weapon.
After what seemed like hours, the winds finally died down.
“What do you think this place is?” Sara asked. Her voice echoed in the small metal room.
“It looks like a power plant or something,” Chuck replied.
“I’m going to open the door.”
“Are they still out there?”
“We’ll know soon. Be ready for a fight.”
Sara cracked the door open and a dingy column of sunlight pierced the darkness. Almost immediately a hand came thrusting through the opening towards her. Sara jumped back and sliced it off in a single motion. The howls of many could be heard beyond.
“Shut it!” Chuck screamed.
Sara pulled the door shut before any others could enter. Sara slumped down and Chuck moved over to her. The two sat in the darkness for a long time before Chuck started rummaging through something.
“I think I have a flashlight,” Chuck said. “I’d forgotten.”
Chuck located it and switched it on. The bright light stung the eyes of both inhabitants.
“Does this room go anywhere?” Sara asked.
Chuck scanned the edges of the room with the beam but found four walls closing them in.
“I think this is the only door,” Chuck announced. “This must be a storage room or something.”
“But without anything in it.”
Chuck came back over to Sara and sat down. He played with the beam on the ceiling for a while until finally turning it off.
“Do you know what happens when you die?” Chuck’s voice broke the darkness.
“No,” Sara answered. “But I bet there won’t be zombies.”
“Will it hurt?”
“I don’t think so. It has to be happy. After all the stuff we’ve been through, we deserve happy.”
“I miss my mom.”
Sara put her arm around Chuck and pulled him closer.
“I’m sorry, Chuck.”
Sara listened to Chuck’s breathing in the dark. From its slow soft rhythm, she assumed he slept. So she did not wake him when the noise of zombies scraping against the walls startled her. But a loud clanging noise woke Chuck with a start.
“What was that?” Chuck asked.
“Zombies,” Sara replied. “I think they’re scraping and beating their heads against the walls.”
“Can they get in?”
“I doubt it. These walls are metal.”
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙
Sara knew they’d need to leave eventually. But for the time being, she rationed their remaining supplies and gave Chuck only a little at a time. The hours stretched out and Sara could no longer tell if they had been stuck there for one day or several. The horrible banging continued in endless rhythm. Sara endured it for as long as she could but it started to drive her crazy. Seeking relief, she tried to meditate and enter the halls of time but the incessant banging kept her in reality. After several attempts she screamed out of extreme frustration.
“Stop!” she screamed over the noise. Her outburst startled Chuck. “Stop! STOP! STOP!”
Chuck stepped away from her to the other corner of the room. In anger, Sara beat her fists against the metal wall and screamed again. After a grunt, Chuck heard her slide down the wall. He flipped on his light and found her doubled over in front of the wall sobbing.
“Chuck,” she said with a wild gaze and bloodshot eyes, “we’ve got to get out of here. We’ll just have to fight our way out. I’m going to go insane if we stay here.”
“Are there a lot of them out there?”
“We’ll be ok. If we can just cut a path and run for it, we can run until we find the others. Use your sword to slice them.”
“I don’t think I’m strong enough.”
“You have to be.”
“I don’t want to be eaten alive. Promise you’ll shoot me if we can’t fight them all. Shoot me in the head.”
This startled Sara. A part of her was sad he knew such horror. But she knew this was their world now. He seemed to her much more like a man than a boy.
“I promise, Chuck. I’ll shoot you if they start coming through.”
He bravely took her hand. “I’m ready.”
Sara whispered a curse over Brady and slowly unlatched the door. Immediately she felt the pressure from those beyond its metal frame. She stepped back letting the door swing on its hinges. The first to come through found Sara’s blade dance across its face. The action proved enough to make it stumble and Chuck finished it off by hacking at its neck with his sword until it stopped moving.
Two more crowded in through the doorway. Sara thrust her sword into the right one’s belly and yanked the sword out the near side. The zombie crumpled and Chuck hacked at it while Sara engaged the second. He lunged towards her but Sara managed to raise her blade in time. Blood splattered across the thin material covering her pregnant belly.
In fierce rage Sara swung knocking down foe after foe. Her arms grew tired before the zombies let up. In relentless procession they burst through the door. She watched desperately for an opportunity to run but one never came.
Sara, too exhausted to pull her sword from a zombie’s chest cavity, reached back and yanked the
pistol from her belt. Using both hands to steady it, she fired a shot through the head of the nearest. The noise echoed off the metal walls. Acting on impulse, Sara fired several more rounds into the next wave. A female zombie managed to lunge forward knocking Sara back into the metal room.
Knowing all was lost, Sara used one hand to push back the zombie on top of her and the other to point the gun at Chuck. He looked at her with wide, scared eyes and backed up. Sara remembered thinking how tragic it was that she didn’t have time to cry.
Click. Click. CLICK.
The hammer fell but no bullets remained.
Sara looked at Chuck now in a horrified expression. In desperation she pointed the gun at the zombie’s head but with the same results. Sara tried to lift herself up but the zombie pressed her back down and tore into her arm.
Startled into action by all this, Chuck jumped for the door and started to close it. Two or three on the outside pressed hard against him but Chuck held his own slowly moving the door towards the frame. The three zombies inside the room all piled onto Sara.
Something snapped inside Sara. She later contributed it to pregnancy hormones but she honestly never really knew. She looked up towards the zombie above her and felt a consuming anger. She bit into the zombie woman’s face and used her legs to flip it over against the metal wall. The other two she fought with feral rage. She clawed at one with her fingernails and bit into its throat with her teeth. When the third came against her, she lunged onto it with all her weight knocking it to the floor. With her legs she kicked off the firsts approach when he recovered.
In nightmarish fury she tore at the second’s face with all her might until it stopped moving. When the final one came again, Sara grabbed its hands with her own. The women bit each other back and forth while their hands remained deadlocked. Sara was first to tear into something vital. She tore a neck ligament supporting the zombie’s head and her head fell helplessly to one side. Sara bit again and again at the wound in the zombie’s neck. The horrific taste of rotting flesh filled Sara’s mouth. Sara bit until she clamped down on the woman’s spine almost breaking one of her own teeth.
Sara felt the zombie woman’s grip loosen and took the opportunity to kick the dead woman against the metal wall. Sara looked around her for a moment seeing the three mutilated corpses at her feet before she collapsed from extreme exhaustion onto the door to try to help Chuck close it. Several more zombies pressed in against the door and completely overpowered the two weak humans struggling against them. Soon several dead poured in the room. Sara felt complete defeat sweep over her. She could barely defeat the three much less five more.
Sara’s vision became blurry when a zombie woman knocked her across the head. Unable to do more, Sara fell onto all fours from the blow. With the remainder of her feeble strength, she hissed “Damn you, Brady!"
Her lips silently repeated the words long after rescue arrived. Val picked Sara up off the floor finding her mouth silently forming the words.
“They’re here!” Chuck yelled the words to Sara many times before she actually understood them.
Sara just shook in Val’s arms silently staring at Chuck. Val leaned back to look at Sara’s face. Dried blood and body parts were smeared on her lips and chin.
“What? Are you one of them now?” Val mocked.
If she could have managed it, Sara would have cried. When she had collected more of herself, Sara tried to wipe off the blood from her lips and chin.
“How did you find us?” Sara managed to ask weakly.
“Once the storm let up, it wasn’t too difficult. Follow the trail of bodies. Then we found a building surrounded by zombies beating their faces against the walls. Seemed pretty obvious.”
“I want to get out of here,” Chuck said.
“Wait till I can patch you up,” Val replied. “That’s a nasty gash in your arm.”
“No, I want to leave now!”
“Well actually, I was kind of thinking this would be a good place to spend the night,” Val replied.
Chuck looked like he would scream or hit Val and went running from the room.
When Val had bandaged Sara’s wounds as best she could, the entire company moved away from the industrial complex.
With Chuck now pacified, Sara’s own emotions got the better of her. A deep seated hatred, like Sara had never known, seized her when she looked up at the building. Her face literally burned with the sensation.
“You’re burning up,” Val said seeing the red tint in Sara’s face.
“I should kill myself and get this over with,” Sara said. “They’re never going to give up until they’ve captured me. They control the world. Where are we going to hide? Death is really the only way out.”
“Sara, what kind of talk is this? We need you. I need you.”
“I’m like Connor. You’d be better off without me.”
“That totally isn’t true! Who got us out of Amarillo? Who single-handedly defeated that beast?”
Sara did not answer.
“You’re a vital part of this group. We won’t make it without you. I firmly believe that!”
“But I’m the reason you’re hunted. It would be better if I gave myself in. Better for everyone! I almost got Chuck killed just because he was with me. If I’d wandered off alone, I’d be captured and you all would be safe.”
“Sara, there is no safe! We’ve learned that lesson already. We’re all in danger. We’ve all signed up for that. We’re here with you till the end. I’ll cut off your legs before I let you give yourself over to them! I’ll drag you along kicking and screaming.” Val paused a moment. “Well you won’t have legs so just screaming!”
Val laughed but Sara just turned away.
“Come on, that was funny,” Val said. Sara made no reply and the smile fell from Val’s face. “Do you understand me? We’re in this together. If you turn yourself in, I’m coming with you. And I’m pretty sure they’re just going to kill me on sight. So you’d be responsible for killing me! And I don’t think you want that on your conscience.”
Sara sighed.
“I hate him,” Sara said.
“I know.”
“He’s the reason we’re here and they’re finding us at every turn.”
“I know.”
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙
Days later, the company wandered aimlessly again. Val, who at the beginning of the day seemed convinced they now headed the right direction, admitted she had no idea where they needed to go. Around dusk, Val gathered everyone around to a huddle. The wind had kicked up beginning the insanity of the sandstorm all over again.
“Does anyone have a clue on where we should go?” Val asked the group.
“I thought we would have found the Gulf of Mexico by now,” Andrea replied.
“Texas is big. If this still is Texas,” Val muttered.
“I haven’t seen a road in days,” another said.
“Sara,” Val turned. “Could you please use your gift and see which way is out of here?” Sara did not reply. “Can’t you just see everything like a map and just zoom out or something?”
Sara seemed altogether distracted.
“Sara,” Val said in a harsher tone, “I’d appreciate if you could focus on me when I’m-“
“Incoming!” Sara yelled as she saw a foot in the distance. The evening light kept her from seeing who it belonged to. Almost as soon as she became aware of it, it disappeared.
Immediately everyone readied their weapons and prepared to defend the perimeter. But no zombies came.
“What are they waiting for?” Val asked.
Moses, sitting in their midst, rose to his feet. He dropped his weapon and stood resolutely.
“Moses,” Val yelled. “What are you doing?”
“It is not the enemy,” Moses replied in his firm voice.
“Yes, it is,” Val yelled back. “They were right there!”
“They are friends. I’ve noticed them for about a day now.”
�
��Says the blind man,” Val replied.
“How do you know that?” Sara asked.
“Is that why there haven’t been any zombie attacks for the last day?” Andrea asked.
“I believe so,” Moses answered.
“So how do you know that?” Sara asked again.
“You are not the only one with knowledge, Sara. Or have you forgotten that others have wisdom too?”
Sara burned at his answer.
“I want to meet them,” Val said starting to wander off towards them.
“They will neither reveal themselves to you nor speak to you,” Moses warned. “They are phantoms of the sand. Let them be.”
“But,” Val protested.
“Do not disturb them,” he said firmly. At this Val sulked like a little girl.
Now that everyone was aware of them, the company noticed the faces in the sand often. Sporadically they would appear like heads barely coming out of a running stream as if to check up on the company. Sometimes they were hideous faces perhaps even zombie-like. Val did as she was told and did not approach them.
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙
The next evening, the company was able to find a broken building to huddle beside and get out of the wind. Guarded by unknown allies, they bowed their heads and were able to sleep more soundly than they had in months.
Chuck always slept cuddled up against Sara. His bond with her continued to deepen as the days progressed. This continued to the point that he seemed constantly by her side. Val smiled as she watched him pointing out things to her he thought interesting.
When the morning broke, they discovered a small dirt road leading up to the structure. Though it seemed like an unimportant county road, they hoped it would take them to a highway or interstate. Val decided that even if they backtracked, at least they could find out where they were.
But as things turned out, the county road took them only to similar dirt roads. For endless miles these dusty paths led on, yielding only battered stop signs as a reward.
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