Writing on the Wall (Survival Series)

by Ward, Tracey

  “You okay?” I ask numbly.

  He glares up at me. “Do I fucking look okay?!”

  I fall to my knees beside him. “You’ve looked better.”

  “What about you?” he wheezes, grasping his side and eyeing me. “Are you okay?”

  “I fucking look okay?” I deadpan.

  “Was it your first time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It gets easier.”

  I snort. “I doubt that.”

  “Trust me, it does.”

  “I don’t want it to.” I say weakly, my eyes stinging.

  “It’s not really a choice.”

  I move to glance over my shoulder. To look at Caroline. At my kill.

  “Don’t.” Vin says firmly, gripping my hand with his blood smeared palm.

  “What the hell happened?!” a voice cries from the doorway.

  Vin and I both look over slowly to find Tim standing there in shock, looking from us to Caroline and back again.

  “What?” is all he can muster.

  “We ran into a little trouble with the plan.” Vin tells him with a grunt.

  He keeps moving around. I assume he’s trying to ease the pain but it’s not going to happen. Not until he’s sewn together again. I grab his shirt at the front then yank hard. It rips down the center, tearing in two. I help him pull his arms out of it then ball it up and press it firmly against his wound.

  “Vin needs a doctor.” I tell Tim. He’s staring at Caroline. “She doesn’t need anything. Not anymore.”

  Tim looks at me for a long moment. His face is a mask and I wonder what he’s thinking. Can he see it on me that I did it? That I killed her? I feel like it’s marked on me somehow like a stink I’ll never be able to wash away.

  “Here’s what happened.” he says quickly and quietly, moving to Caroline’s body. “Joss came out here for some fresh air. She saw Vin and Caroline… being intimate. She felt angry and jealous so she attacked Caroline with… what is this in her neck?”

  “A trowel.” Vin and I say in unison monotone.

  “Alright, Joss attacked her with a trowel. She killed Caroline and found the knife that she always kept on her for protection. Then she turned the knife on Vin, stabbed him, took Caroline’s keys to the fence and ran.”

  “I’m leaving?” I ask, looking at him in surprise.

  “Hell yes, you’re leaving.” He’s rooting around in Caroline’s pockets now, jostling her body back and forth. It flops lifelessly and I worry I’ll be sick. “Vin can’t go and you can’t stay here. You killed one of the leaders. And this is better than Vin escaping. That brings up questions of how and who helped and is there dissension in the ranks. This way it was a lover’s quarrel, something not uncommon in the Pods, though it usually ends in fist fights not…”

  “Stabbings?” I ask.

  “Exactly. Here.” Keys land beside my knees on the packed, frosty dirt. “Take those. Get out of here. Do what he was supposed to do.”

  I shake my head, staring at the keys. At freedom. “The Hive doesn’t know me.” I protest weakly. “They’ll never listen to me. They’ll never even speak to me.”

  “Take this.” Vin says. He pulls his ring off his finger and slips it on mine. On the ring finger of my left hand. He smirks through a grimace. “Don’t get excited, it’s just a loner.”

  “Nothing would thrill me less.” I mutter, staring at the ring. It’s a dark metal full of dents, scratches and dark blue flecks. It’s beautiful.

  “Yeah,” he grunts. “Act like I don’t know.”

  “Will they recognize it?”

  “Marlow will. He knows it was my old man’s. It’s the only thing that’s ever meant anything to me.”

  I look in his eyes and feel like crying. He could die. I could die. We all might die no matter what I do but suddenly I feel so cold and bone tired I don’t even know which way is up anymore.

  “They won’t listen to me, will they?” I whisper.

  His lips form a grim line. He shakes his head sharply. “Probably not.”

  I nod, looking at the ring and thinking it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. Not if we never try.

  “Alright, I’ll go.” I say, standing and quaking with cold and nerves.

  “Hey.” Vin says. He’s staring up at me and in this light I can’t read his eyes. “You’ll get it done. You’re a better man than I am.”

  I chuckle. “No shit.”

  Two minutes later I’m wearing Tim’s sweater, carrying the knife and trowel and I’m running through the gates. I fumble in the dark, slipping on the wet boards of the dock. Finally I get my hands on a small rowboat and cast off, launching myself out over the cold, black water. If a guard sees me they don’t say anything and I wonder if some of them aren’t sick of the Colony after all. It’s a miracle I’ve made it out unseen and unhurt. It’ll be an even bigger miracle if I survive.

  It’s icy cold out here and even with Tim’s sweater I’m still shivering violently. It’s not just the cold. It’s the lack of adrenaline after the fight, it’s the shock of having killed a woman, it’s the fear for Vin’s life, it’s the fear for my life and the fear of the Risen that surround this place in a thick wave that comes crashing in on me the second I take to shore.

  I have to start running immediately and I can only hope I’m going the right way. Tim told me to head southeast. He said there are roads that are intentionally filled with debris and made impassible to force attacks from only one direction. Southeast.

  I run as fast as I can, leaving a pocket of Risen behind and finding a blessed silent section of the city. I know the Risen are surrounding me on all sides, I can hear them everywhere, but I have to get it together. I slow my pace, slow my breathing and try to slow my mind. It’s racing ahead of me, running away from me. It’s already at The Hive. It’s already standing before Marlow, assuming I ever even make it that far without being killed or pimped, and it’s failing. It’s showing him the ring, he’s laughing in its face and he’s sending it to the stables. All my worst fears are running around me, after me, before me. I feel so boxed in and terrified that I stop moving entirely to lean over and vomit on the street.

  A Risen stumbles in front of me from out of nowhere, though in this darkness everywhere is nowhere. It takes me a moment to get my bearings and it’s a moment I don’t have. I take an extra second too long to verify that it’s dead, that it’s not another Caroline and in that second it grabs me hard. I drop the knife to push on its forehead and keep its gnashing, drooling teeth from closing in on my face. I can smell the putrid breath of the thing rolling over me and I gag hard. I can’t get in a clean breath. I’m starting to see stars. I’m wondering what the hell is wrong with me when I finally get it together enough to jam the trowel into the Risen’s eye. It’s too large to go in far enough to damage the brain so I have to pull it out and try another tract. It will scar me further for the rest of my days, but I do what I know works. I start stabbing the trowel into the neck of the thing, front and back and sides, pushing harder and harder back until it finally does it job. The head falls forward useless as all of the muscles I’ve cut lose tension and give out. It’s drooling over its own chest now, unable to look anywhere but at its feet and as I back away it starts walking in circles looking for me.

  I can hear the moan and groan of other Risen falling in close on me from all sides. They smell the blood on me. Caroline’s blood. It’s all over the shirt beneath Tim’s sweater. Even now with that sweater covered in the cold black tar that this zombie just sprayed all over me, they smell Caroline. There are too many here and I don’t have the kind of weaponry I need to survive this. Even with my ASP and a gun I don’t know if I’d survive this swarm. This is part of the Colony’s defenses, I realize. This is just another way they keep us locked in. Or dead.

  I give up running. I’m lost in the dark at this point and exhausted beyond reason. I decide to head for the nearest building. It’s my only shot though it’s not much of one. I’m shivering
and shaking as I sprint clumsily inside, feeling the agonizing press of the walls around me and the hands at my back. They’re everywhere, literally everywhere here and I wonder if this wasn’t the dumbest idea I’ve ever had. I make it to the stairwell and start to climb, my legs shaking beneath me. I stumble twice and each time it’s harder to get back up. I can’t see a thing in here and I’m working entirely on feel. Do you understand how horrifying that is? Being in the dark, nearly unarmed and surrounded by your worst nightmare. I expect every step to stumble me, every breath to be my last. Every corner holds the promise of stepping straight into the crushing embrace of a hungry risen, primed and ready to devour me with yellow, rotted teeth. They’ll sink into my flesh. They’ll tear it from the bones. All while I live and breathe and scream.

  By the time I burst through the opening to the roof, I’m crying. I’m weeping, nearly hyperventilating and shaking from head to toe. I slam the door behind me, nearly screaming in relief when I find a working lock on it. I don’t hear the infected coming, but that doesn’t mean they’re not. They’re down there in the streets below, shuffling and moaning. They were in the building as I ran through. They know where to find me. It’s only a matter of time.

  I collapse against the door, sinking down onto the rough rooftop. I’m feeling like this is as good a place as any to die. I work harder than I ever have before to find my numb. To get it back, to be the unfeeling, uncrying, unafraid, unaffected husk I have been for the last six years. To be the girl who survives. But I’m not her anymore. I haven’t been since the comet and the music and the kiss. Since the words on the wall. Since the back of the van. Since the kitchen and the laughter.

  I’m not a survivor anymore. But I am alive.

  “I’m awake.” I whisper into the cold darkness.

  I doze off. Somewhere in the night my shivering isn’t enough to keep me awake anymore. But the sudden banging on the door is.

  Directly behind me, separated by only inches of steel door, are clawing hands and shuffling feet. Gnashing teeth and hungry, dead eyes. I can feel the salty trails of my tears dried on my cheeks, making them feel stiff and strange. My body is achingly cold and angry from sitting in front of this door for so long. I can’t run. I doubt I can fight. Even if I can, how many are there? One for sure, for now, but how many will follow? Given enough time there will be enough to bring the door down and where will I go from there?

  Light is building in the sky, telling me where east is. Taunting me with the knowledge that now means nothing to me. I’m sitting facing it, watching the warm glow grow and grow as the pounding behind me builds as well. Another set of hands has joined in. How many can the door hold? Not many, I imagine. The light is turning yellow, rays of the sun piercing the dark sky and falling on my face. In my eyes, blinding me. I wince against the light, reminded of my last moment out in the wild before they shut me in the van.

  Then I’m on my feet, falling as my numb legs try to support my weight. I rise again, stumbling and crawling toward the edge of the building, looking for the perfect spot. A place where the skyline gives me a clear view toward my neighborhood. Toward a red brick building on 7th and Boren.

  I pull the trowel from my pocket and shine it with my shirt as best I can. I spit on it again and again, moistening the dried blood that I try so hard not to think about. Some of it is the Risen’s. Some of it is not. Finally it shines like new and I hope so hard it hurts my heart. This will work. This has to work.

  I use the rays of the sun, reflecting them on the clean shine of the metal. I create the most erratic pattern I can manage. I’m not going for an SOS, I don’t know Morse Code. All I can do is get someone’s attention. I can only hope that I’m not too far away. That he’s watching. That his sharp, unnerving eyes are enough to save me.

  The moans at the door increase behind me. The sun’s rays disappear behind a walking bridge between two nearby buildings. I drop the trowel by my side and I wonder if it was enough. If the Lost Boys will save me.

  But when have I ever needed saving?

  “Are you a Wendy?” I whisper to myself, scanning the low rooftops on the surrounding buildings. It’s a long drop to every one of them. But is it too long? How would a person know unless they tried?

  I take several steps back from the edge, bouncing on the balls of my feet. Then I crouch.

  “Or are you a mutherfucking Tinkerbell?”

  Watch for the next book in

  The Survival Series, Backs Against the Wall.

  Coming in 2014!

  You can also find other works

  by Tracey Ward here:

  Until the End (Quarantined)

  Sleepless (Bird of Stone)